August 2020

#83 | AUGUST ’20 | `200

DRIVEN: VW T-ROC MG Hector Plus F8 Spider

V4S v V2

The ultimate Panigale?

SF90 STRADALE FERRARI’S ELECTRIFYING 1000 HORSEPOWER HYBRID

B I G C O M PA R I S O N T E S T S

C-SEGMENT SEDANS

PREMIUM HATCHBACKS

Honda City i-VTEC v VW Vento TSI Hyundai Verna Turbo v Skoda Rapid TSI Tata Altroz v VW Polo TSI, Maruti Suzuki Baleno & Hyundai i20 New Section, TUNED! 480bhp Octy RS

170bhp Zen

Mustang Mach-E 1400

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#83

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Ed speak SIRISH CHANDRAN

NO TRAVEL, NO PRESS CONFERENCES TO ATTEND, far fewer cars and bikes being launched. It means we are spending more time with whatever we can get our hands on, and also have plenty of time to slow-cook our stories. And thoughts. Here are this month’s takeaways.

Skoda and VW are on the right track. The new 1.0 TSI is the best small petrol motor, by a mile. It has transformed the Polo, Rapid and Vento but these are stop-gaps. This engine is being localised, not for these ten-year-old cars, but for next year’s Taigun, and whatever Skoda’s mid-size SUV will be called. And going by how much fun I’ve had caning this motor over the past four months, I’m convinced next year’s mid-SUVs will be great to drive. Particularly since the MQB-A0 underpinnings aren’t a million miles away from one of the more engaging and entertaining things I’ve driven over the past months — VW’s T-Roc. The made-for-India SUVs will also get the T-Roc’s 1.5 TSI Evo engine with the DSG gearbox which should deliver The Thrill of Driving (as anything with Evo in its name bloody well should!).

Next, Hyundai are killing it. Going by the pace of their launches you’d think there’s no pandemic; it’s a relentless stream of cars, SUVs and technology. Skoda-VW have given up on DSG for small engines but Hyundai is rolling out the DCT on more and more cars. The Creta is excellent, taking everything that made the Seltos a runaway success, and making it that wee bit better — to the point that even the styling has become palatable. The improvements to the Verna’s ride and handling are remarkable, even eclipsing that of the benchmark, and now the only thing that needs sorting is the steering. The iMT gearbox (first announced on the Kia Sonet) could be a game-changer. And they continue to keep the faith with diesels.

The era of diesels isn’t over! Skoda-VW, in fact the entire Group, needs to re-look their strategy of killing off diesels.

Maruti Suzuki too! I’m using a pre-BS6 diesel Tiguan and it’s not only cheaper to run than the new petrol but, in the real world, it is equally quick, refined and has twice the range.

But you cannot do without a petrol and the Harrier definitely needs one. That said, both the Altroz and the Harrier are excellent, and Tata Motors must make some noise – and soon! – if people are not to forget about them.

And finally, can Mahindra please launch the Thar already.

I’ve had it with chasing down test mules, the camouflage flapping way in the wind, the classic 2-door Jeep silhouette reminding me of the times when we could actually travel. L

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EVO WORLDWIDE EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Indian Motorcycle of the Year

Australia Jesse Taylor China Zheng Chen Croatia Nikola Curic Czech Republic Petr Ehrlich Egypt Ahmed Wakil France Patrick Garcia Italy Piero Bacchetti Korea Yushin Lim Malaysia Daniel Wong Middle East Bassam Kronfli Singapore Sheldon Trollope Slovenia Matjaž Korošak Spain Javier Arus Thailand Chettha Songthaveepol Turkey Bahadir Bektas UK Stuart Gallagher

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Contents

#83

REGULARS

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156

IGNITION

CONNEC T

MOTORSPORT

E VO ENCYCLOPEDI A

Talking to Gordon Murray about the T.50, new metal like the Ford Bronco, Nissan Magnite, 2021 Range Rover and Range Rover Sport, and the Pravaig Extinction. We also pay tribute to Hans Mezger, while running you through all the launches in the last month

026 FIRS T DRIV ES 026 VOLKSWAGEN T-ROC 033 MG HECTOR PLUS 036 FERRARI F8 SPIDER 044 JANNARELLY DESIGN-1 048 MAT STRATOS

The best comments on our mid-size SUV comparison test on YouTube!

58 SUBSCRIPTIONS

Get 12 issues of evo for just `1800 – each delivered early to your door – and enjoy a free gift too!

113 FAS T BIKES 116 UPFRONT

MRF’s Perfinzas continue to impress!

DE A D ON A RRIVA L

The modern NSX revived the name after 11 years, but did you know there was a V10 Honda that never saw the light of day between them?

161 NE X T MONTH

118 DUCATI PANIGALE V4S V V2 Is the V4 S worth all that extra cash?

E VO FLEE T

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126 HERO XTREME 160R

COLUMNS

The Dominar gets a new heart

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TRIED A ND TES TED

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The Porsche 930 Turbo goes head-tohead with a 992 Turbo

Hero attacks the 160cc segment

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152

This month, we look at K-L

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All the motorcycling news you need

054 Bijoy Kumar, Richard Meaden & Richard Porter

We talk to the motorsport community about Covid-19 and the roadmap for the rest of the year, we get our hands on a serious racing simulator and MRF finishes just off of the podium at the European Rally Championship

128 BAJAJ DOMINAR 250 130 TVS APACHE RR 310 Riding the updated RR on the streets

evoIndia.com | August ’20

People love the Volkswagen Tiguan on social media and we pull out the most interesting comments, and while the Kona Electric makes more sense every day, could it suffice as the only car in your garage?

GONE BUT NOT FORGOT TEN

The Fiat Palio S10 was a desirable car, but never took off like it should have

Contents

#83

F E AT UR E S

060 FERR A RI SF90 S TR A DA LE Ferrari’s flagship mid-engined supercar has been revolutionised with hybrid tech and AWD. Does it stay true to the Ferrari ethos though?

071 TATA A LTROZ v H Y UNDA I I20 v M A RUTI SUZUKI BA LENO v V W POLO

The premium hatchback segment had taken a backseat but with the launch of the Altroz, things have started to heat up again!

080 MCL A REN P1 ROA DTRIP

Seven years after redefining the supercar, is the P1 still relevant?

We head out on a roadtrip through Spain to find out

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H A NDLING M AT TERS

HONDA CIT Y v V W V ENTO

TUNED: R ACE CONCEP T S ZEN

Good handling means enjoyable and safe cars, and Hyundai has really stepped it up on that front as we find out on a drive to the hills

096 L A NCI A A ND A LFA’S R ACING HERITAGE

Lancia and Alfa Romeo may not be active in motorsport any more, but they have rich legacies that ought not to be forgotten

102 SKODA R A PID v H Y UNDA I V ERN A TURBO

Turbo-petrols seem to be the way forward, and while the Rapid is only available as a manual and the Verna as an automatic, this makes for an interesting square-off

NEWS The best resource online for the latest car, bike and motorsport news

Natural aspiration or turbocharging: which of these two make for the more enjoyable driving experience? To answer this question, we bring the new Honda City with its i-VTEC engine up against the Vento TSI

146 TUNED: A KR A POV IC

138 TUNED

We’re kicking off a new section dedicated to the tuner community and its wildest builds!

Exhaust technology has evolved significantly in the last two decades and Akrapovic has been at the forefront of it

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138 TUNED: SKODA OC TAV I A

The first story in this section had to be about a car with legacy and the Octavia RS is just that: we follow an Octy that was progressively tuned into a 500+bhp monster

VIDEOS Sideways cars, bikes on one wheel and interesting people (YouTube.com/c/evoIndia)

Joel Joseph gets his hands on the humble Zen and ends up with a hugely desirable build that won’t cost you a kidney

TUNED: MUS TA NG M ACH-E 1400

What will happen to tuner cars when we go electric? The Mustang Mach-E 1400 with its seven electric motors and tyre-shredding torque might have some answers

REVIEWS Full multi-page in-depth reviews of the cars and bikes that matter

SOCIAL Two-way Facebook, Twitter and Instragram policy. Talk to us now! (@evoIndia)

N E WS , I NTERVI E WS , TEC H A N D E V ERY N E W C A R TH AT M AT TERS

It’s all in the detail Gordon Murray reveals why the T.50 remains on track and provides an analogue tour of its cockpit 12

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evoIndia.com | August ’20

O YOU PEER BEHIND PEOPLE’S heads as they’re talking in Zoom or Teams meetings to see what’s on their bookshelves or hanging on their walls?

While trying not to look obvious while doing so, I’m having a good snoop behind Gordon Murray’s head. I can see a Brabham in Parmalat colours; an old photo of the T1, the first car he ever designed; and of course there’s a picture of a McLaren F1. It’s that car and its spiritual successor that we’re talking about today.

The T.50 is going to be our sort of car. In the words of Murray himself, ‘it will be the last of the world’s great analogue supercars’. Murray is building this car because he can, and reckons

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G O R D O N M U R R AY T. 5 0 I N T E R V I E W WORDS by COLIN GOODWIN

very few, if any, others could. ‘A very small team built the F1,’ he says, ‘and although I have a larger team of people at Gordon Murray Design and an even more capable one, we are still focused and we do not have to answer to a committee in any way, shape, or form.’

The only car Murray has played a significant part in that I haven’t admired or enjoyed driving is the McLaren SLR. ‘There’s a very good and clever car in there,’ he says, ‘but it ended up being carried through to production by committees and endless meetings. Also, by a huge company and all the inefficiencies that go with that. I was staggered to discover on a visit to Mercedes at Stuttgart that the blokes who designed the front suspension of the E-class and the rear suspension were in different buildings. They had to get in cars to visit each other.

‘We decided to build the T.50 because I believe either nobody really understood the

formula behind the F1 or due to the size and scale of their company they couldn’t deliver such a focused product. We also felt we were in a position to make a much better car than the F1 because I know the areas which make it very special to drive, but also the areas which are not good or where it didn’t deliver.’

It was refreshing almost 30 years ago to hear Murray not spout on about projected performance figures for the F1 and it is doubly so today in a world in which companies willywave with Nürburgring lap times for their hot hatches and, god forbid, their SUVs. Murray simply said the F1 was light and had a lot of power so it would be fast. And fast it was, proven at Le Mans in the heat of competition rather than at a manufacturer’s private Ring session.

Murray is taking the same tack today.

The T.50 will weigh 980kg and have 652bhp.

That it will be fast can be taken as read. Also

the same is the brief that Murray laid down 30 years ago and the one that is before him today for the Type 50. ‘At the top of that list,’ explains Murray, ‘is that every part on the car, even those the owner would never see, has to be engineering art; designed for light weight

Above: First rendering of the T.50 revealed the 400mm-diameter central rear fan that will influence downforce and drag and also help to cool the 4-litre Cosworth-supplied V12. Top: Murray’s sketches for the central driving position and steering wheel and instruments

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IGNITION

and made from the very best materials on the planet.

‘The engine had to be naturally aspirated and a V10 or V12 and have the highest specific output yet seen for a normally aspirated road car, with the highest revs per minute. It would have to also sound fantastic. The driving experience would come from a low polar moment of inertia, pure analogue controls including a manual gearbox, great ergonomics, visibility and minimum interference from driver aids. And a central driving position.

‘The car would have a small footprint with styling integrated with packaging, engineering, aerodynamics and homologation requirements. It would be timeless and have classic proportions.’

Murray’s track record, quite literally, gives us good reason to believe these goals will be met. What we already know about the car’s technical specification points that way.

But what about mission creep, or worse, the project never seeing the light of day? A couple

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NO ONE ELSE IS WORKING ON ANYTHING C L O S E T O W H AT WE ARE DOING of current supercar projects look like they might be going that way. Could the T.50 join them?

‘My whole working life has been about delivering a project on time, to a weight, and to a budget,’ says Murray. ‘In Formula 1 there’s no possibility of missing the start of the season because the car isn’t finished. Being overweight or lacking in areas is similarly black and white; too heavy equals poor results. And I am well used to having to work quickly and so are my team. Many are ex-racing guys and know me well. For example, for the Brabham

BT46 [fan car] just myself and David North produced over 1200 drawings over the space of three months.’

The team is also able to use much of the methodology proven on the F1. Even down to using an Ultima chassis for the mule. ‘For the F1 we used one for the engine and one for the gearbox. This time we’re just using one – called George – for both. There’s nothing better to use because the Ultima’s big, heavy steel-tube chassis is so easy to hack about and add bits like brackets to in quick time.’

GMA already has a transmission from Xtrac and expects an engine from Cosworth soon.

‘We’re trying, as always, to source as many components from the UK. We’re really happy with the gearbox. It’s 10kg lighter than the F1’s so should be brilliant, especially as we have plenty of time to develop it.’

The same lack of committees is also a key factor in actually getting the car developed and then built. ‘It’s key. It doesn’t need a cast of thousands, you just need a designer,

G O R D O N M U R R AY T. 5 0 I N T E R V I E W

engineer and technician deciding on what’s needed. The tub is a good example. The T.50’s is being built by Formaplex on the south coast and they’re going to have one of their people embedded in GMA and we’ll have someone at their place. Simple chain of command; simple and quick decision-making.’

Much of the component testing will be carried out by suppliers, but also in-house at GMA. ‘We’ll make things like rigs for testing wiper systems; other parts will be tested by their manufacturer and we’ll do our own confirmation tests. One area where we are like the mainstream manufacturers is that we’ll be carrying out the same sort of hot- and cold-weather testing as they do. Probably Arjeplog in Sweden for the latter and perhaps Abu Dhabi for the hot weather testing.’

Murray is too diplomatic to say it, but many manufacturers of small-run supercars might not actually bother with this step.

‘There are many areas of the F1 that I wasn’t happy with or that simply didn’t work properly.

Above: In line with Murray’s insistence on using only the best materials, the primary controls will be made from machined aluminium and clustered around the steering wheel, jet fighter-style. Above, left: A large analogue rev counter will take centre stage in front of the driver

The air conditioning, for example, was pretty useless, but we’ve developed a 48V electrical system that should sort that out. Cabin ventilation was also poor and that too we will crack. Testing in extreme climates will be the final test.’

There’s never been a true successor to the F1. Murray has much praise for many supercars that followed in its wake, particularly those built by Koenigsegg and Pagani – companies also headed by determined men who don’t have to tolerate the misery of a meeting room.

‘They produce fabulous cars,’ says Murray, ‘but they are based on carry-over engines and they are large and heavy. Same as Porsche’s Carrera GT and the Ferrari F50 and Enzo. Many of the

current supercars out there that are faster than the F1 and so much more capable, I’ve driven most of them on the road and on track.

None gave me the goosebump feel that I get every time I jump back in an F1.

‘There is no one else currently working on anything that’s even close to what we are doing from a driver/engineering point of view.

It’s also strange to think that in the future we will have a generation of drivers who have never driven a normally aspirated car or, at some point, even an internal-combustion car.’

It’s hard not to get swept up in Murray’s enthusiasm and the project occupying all his time. In fact, I got so wrapped up in the excitement of a car that has an engine that will rev to over 12,000rpm and which still has a clutch pedal and a gearlever, that I totally forgot to ask about infotainment, whether I would be able to tether my iPhone to it or if there will be a MyT.50 app. If there will be any of those distractions in his car, Murray also forgot to mention them.

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BMW M3

IGNITION WORDS by

MW’S NEW M3 IS NEARING completion, with the company confirming that dynamic track testing is now taking place ahead of the car’s world premiere in mid-September.

As before, the new M3 is part of a two-pronged assault that splits the highperformance saloon from an equivalent coupe, once more badged M4. The latter has so far made headlines more for a toothy interpretation of BMW’s kidney grille than its performance credentials, but as we’ve come to expect, the latest cars will once again raise the bar for vehicles of their type.

Power will come from BMW’s latest ‘S58’ 3-litre turbocharged straight-six, already seen in the recent X3 M, and will arrive in two outputs – a 473bhp model with a six-speed manual gearbox as standard, and a 503bhp Competition version, using an eight-speed M Steptronic automatic.

The auto is a torque converter rather than a dual-clutch, but the big news isn’t just that the regular M3 will let you shift cogs with a stick, but that rear-wheel-drive will remain on the table, an all-wheel-drive xDrive variant arriving later. Both suggest BMW’s M division is as keen as ever to pitch the M3/ M4 as a true driver’s car – a title that for us is currently better suited to Alfa Romeo’s Giulia Quadrifoglio.

Testing is taking place on roads in southern France and Arjeplog in Sweden, and will allow BMW to fine-tune the car’s chassis dynamics ahead of launch. As ever, racetrack testing is

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ANTONY INGRAM

Rear gunner

New BMW M3 will offer a manual ’box and rear-wheel drive when it debuts in September a key part of the development regime, and as well as the usual repeated Nürburgring Nordschleife lapping, BMW is spending plenty of time at the Sachsenring, frequently used

by DTM and chosen for its long straights and tough hairpins.

Full details of the car’s underpinnings haven’t yet been revealed, but as with previous cars both M3 and M4 feature a wider track than standard 3 Series models, while all-wheel-drive cars are likely to feature a drift mode much like that of the larger M5.

That wider track will define the styling too, which should include a quad-tipped exhaust system, at least 19-inch alloys with Michelin Pilot Sport 4 S rubber, and a small lip spoiler.

The M3 is, mercifully, likely to retain the standard 3-series’ more conventional front grille, though engineers have artfully hidden

The big news is that rear-wheel-drive will remain on the table, all-wheel-drive arriving later

its true design under camouflage so far, so there’s still the potential for surprises.

BMW’s pulling no punches, describing the new M3 as ‘significantly superior to its predecessors in terms of performance’. We’ll be the judge of that though, when the car arrives later this year.

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IGNITION

R A N G E ROV ER & R A N G E ROV ER S P O RT WORDS by AATISH MISHRA

HERE’S A NEW RANGE ROVER AND Range Rover Sport in town… but they look exactly like the old ones. That’s because the changes to the 2021 cars are more under the hood than anything else. The V6 and V8 diesel engines have been replaced by a single 3-litre straight six diesel from the Ingenium family, with a mild-hybrid system added in for good measure. The reasons? Oh, the same — lower emissions and better fuel economy, while improving performance — everything that has made downsizing the norm.

The new engine is has an all-aluminium construction, making it lighter than the V8 it replaces by 80kg. It gets two turbochargers that are sequentially arranged to provide optimum torque low down in the rev range,

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Fresh Heart V8 and V6 diesel in the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport has been retired in favour of a new in-line-six

while the engine has been designed to minimise friction to improve efficiency. The 48V mild hybrid system works as you would expect it to — it harvests energy while slowing down and redeploys it as torque, while making the car more efficient.

This new diesel engine is available in a total of three outputs — the D250 makes 245bhp and 600Nm, the D300 makes 296bhp and 650Nm, while the most powerful, the D350, makes 345bhp and 700Nm. This engine will be shared between the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport, with identical outputs. Meanwhile, the petrol engines continue as they were.

To keep things interesting, Land Rover announced a number of special edition models for the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport. For the flagship Range Rover, there is a Westminster Edition based on the Vogue with rear privacy glass and 21-inch wheels. The SVAutobiography Dynamic Black (pictured) gets all-black everything — right down to the brake calipers.

Meanwhile the Range Rover 50 celebrates 50 years of Range Rover with unique ‘Fifty’ badging and the option to spec it in a colour that the original Range Rover was sold in.

As for the special editions on the Range Rover Sport, there’s now an SVR Carbon Edition, with a liberal dose of carbonfibre inserts and components on the exterior and interior. The HSE Silver edition is based on the HSE trim, but gets ‘Shadow Atlas’ exterior trim, privacy glass and 21-inch wheels. Like the Range Rover, the Sport also gets a Dynamic Black variant with blacked-out exteriors and an all-black interior.

Apart from this, the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport have remained largely the same for 2021. Minor additions include an air purifier, additional smartphone connectivity and more standard equipment. There may not be an eight cylinder diesel in the Range Rover lineup any more, but this new straight six engine provides more performance, while improving emissions and keeping diesel power alive.

IGNITION

FORD BRONCO WORDS by AATISH MISHRA

Wild Horses

Ford revives the Bronco, and it is everything we expected it to be and then some EST-IN-CLASS’ IS FREQUENTLY thrown around in press releases, but in the Ford Bronco’s case, it was everywhere. And when that class includes the likes of the Jeep Wrangler Rubicon, you know the Bronco means business. The Bronco has every single ingredient to make it an icon — serious off-road cred, motorsport heritage, styling that wakes up the six-year-old in you and, most importantly, doors that come off.

The Bronco nameplate has been resurrected after 24 years, with inspiration drawn heavily from the 1965 original. It’s a proper off-roader with a ladder frame chassis, solid rear axle, independent front axles and an anti-roll bar that disconnects at the touch of a button. Let’s get the numbers out of the way first — 295mm of ground clearance, which is best in class.

A 43.2-degree approach angle, 37.2-degree departure angle and 29-degree breakover angle.

Wading depth of 851mm — again best in class.

And suspension travel that is “17 per cent more both front and rear over the closest competitor”.

Ford isn’t even trying to be modest.

The Bronco is available in two-door and

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four-door variants. It also gets two engines — a 2.3-litre EcoBoost 4-cylinder (226bhp, 420Nm), and a 2.7-litre EcoBoost V6 (306bhp, 542Nm).

The smaller engine comes with a 7-speed manual and a 10-speed automatic, while the V6 only gets the automatic. There are two types of transfer cases on offer too — a shift-on-the-fly two-speed transfer case that can be controlled via a dial, and a more advanced two-speed unit with lower gearing that can automatically shuffle between 2H and 4H. The Bronco isn’t just an analogue dinosaur — it comes packing plenty of tech. There’s a total

of seven driving modes and it also gets a cruise control system for low-speed trails, a turn assist feature that uses torque vectoring to tighten its turning radius off-road and the ability to drive it with one pedal off-road. Most impressive, though, is the Sasquatch package that gets 17-inch wheels shod with 35-inch mud tyres, the advanced 4x4 system, locking diffs on both axles, a 1.2-inch lift, flared arches to fit the new tyres and long-travel Bilstein dampers. Hardcore.

On the inside, everything has been rubberised and silicon sealed so you can hose it down.

There are plenty of chunky grab handles, but you also get a 12-inch infotainment screen and a digital instrument cluster.

That’s not all when it comes to the Bronco family though, because there is a Bronco Sport — a monocoque-based SUV, styled like the Bronco, but with dialled down off-road ability and different engines. Think of it as a rival to the Jeep Compass with similar levels of off-road ability. Now the million-dollar question — is it coming to India? Unlikely. But Ford has seen a great response to the Mustang so far, so we may just be in for a treat!

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IGNITION

N I S S A N M A G N I T E C O N C E P T & P R AVA I G E X T I N C T I O N WORDS by AATISH MISHRA & KARAN SINGH

Magnite calling Nissan’s compact SUV has been showcased in concept form and will be launched in India soon NE MODEL CAN MAKE THE difference,” said Nissan’s execs about the Indian market at the global unveil of the Magnite. Well, they’re certainly hoping this one model can make the difference, because our market hasn’t been too kind to them otherwise. The Magnite, if you haven’t figured already, is Nissan’s shot at the lucrative sub-4m SUV segment. Not too many details were revealed — this is still in concept form but take away some of the more outlandish bits and you’re pretty much looking at the production car.

The Magnite takes a step away from the V-motion grille that is a standard feature on all other Nissan SUVs. In fact if you look closely you will see a bit of Datsun in the design... because this was supposed to be a Datsun.

That said, the Magnite is still a cool-looking SUV. It has thin headlamps, DRLs that run down the bumper and chunky cladding all over.

There are typical SUV elements like skid plates and roof rails, and it also gets stylish elements like a blacked-out roof. There’s a fair bit of chrome as well — on roof rails, door handles and along the window line, but we don’t know how blingy the production version will be.

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Not too much has been revealed on the packaging front but they did seem keen on stressing that the Magnite will be spacious.

We also know that the Magnite will get features like a 360-degree camera, an 8-inch touchscreen and connected car features. The Magnite is based on Renault-Nissan’s CMF-A+ platform and will likely get a 1-litre naturally aspirated engine, and – important to readers of this magazine – the new 1-litre turbo-petrol.

Nissan is expected to launch the Magnite early next year and given our market’s insatiable hunger for SUVs, it has the potential to cash in on the wave. Well, the Magnite has to if Nissan is to stay relevant in India.

Lease is More Electric car start-up Pravaig is approaching the market with a fresh angle LECTRIC CARS ARE ALL THE rage and the latest to jump on the bandwagon is Bengaluruheadquartered Pravaig with the ominously named Extinction. And instead of selling them directly to customers, they’ll be leasing them only to fleet operators, along with a trained chauffeur to do the driving.

The Extinction aims to maximise passenger comfort with individual rear seats that can recline up to 55 degrees, USB ports and claims of a state-of-the-art air filtration system. Space will be generous, with it measuring 4820mm in length, 3038mm wheelbase and 1934mm width.

Pravaig claims the electric motor puts out 201bhp and 1200Nm of torque, and that the prototypes can accelerate from 0-100kmph in under five seconds. However, the final cars will be detuned to deliver 0-100kmph in 5.9 seconds, in the interest of range. Speaking of which, Pravaig aims to eke out 500 kilometres of range on a single charge. When you do run out, a full charge should take about four hours with a 40kW charger, or you can get 300km of range in 30 minutes with a fast charger.

Pravaig’s unique approach has generated interest from other companies. EREN Groupe, an organisation specialising in renewable energy has invested in Pravaig.

It’s claimed that a major OEM will handle manufacturing. Standard-issue components like the HVAC and electrical systems will be outsourced, while the battery pack will be assembled in-house. Currently, the Extinction is in its sixth prototype and nine are planned before the production go-ahead next year.

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IGNITION

O B IT UA RY WORDS by STUART GALLAGHER

HANS MEZGER, 1929-2020

The engineer behind a dynasty of Porsche engines and race cars ANS MEZGER, THE MAN RESPONSIBLE for Porsche’s most iconic and successful road and race engines and cars, has passed away at the age of 90.

Born in a small village on the outskirts of Stuttgart, Mezger joined Porsche in 1956 after graduating from the University of Stuttgart in mechanical engineering. Initially working in the calculation department, by 1960 his skill and talents were recognised by Ferdinand Piëch, who moved him to Porsche’s Formula 1 team, where he was responsible for engine and chassis design. Porsche’s first and only F1 victory as a manufacturer came in 1962 when Mezger’s Type 753 1.5-litre eight-cylinder engine was installed in the 804 chassis.

Mezger’s star continued to rise within Stuttgart, and Ferry Porsche charged the young engineer with designing a new air-cooled flat-six engine for the company’s forthcoming 2+2 rearengined sports car. Along with designing the 901/911 motor, Mezger was accountable for all of the company’s racing engines too.

Mezger also designed the 910, 907, 908 and 917 race cars, the 2-litre four-cylinder engine for

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the 914, and was behind the 917/10 and 917/30 CanAm racers and their turbocharged engines.

Turbocharging was soon to be rolled out across Porsche’s other race cars in the 935 and 936, as well as the 911 road car. And within a couple of years Mezger had also developed water cooling and four-valve heads for these engines. Engines for Harley-Davidson and IndyCar racers came under Mezger’s remit, too, and in 1981, when McLaren chose Porsche to design its new F1 engine, Mezger was responsible for the all-conquering 1.5-litre, 80-degree turbocharged V6. It powered McLaren to three driver and two construction world championship titles. Mezger was also instrumental in the development of Porsche’s 956 and 962 Group C cars, considered the greatest of their time, and by some the greatest of all time.

Until his retirement in 1993, all of Porsche’s on-track success could be traced directly back to the engines and cars Hans Mezger was behind. In retirement his expertise lived on in the company’s products, most notably the 911. Even when the flat-six became water cooled in 1998, a handful of flat-six engines could still trace

their routes back to a Mezger design.

By then, however, the Mezger ‘six’ was reserved for those special 911s, initially the 996 Turbo, GT2 and GT3. And while the 997-generation Turbo and GT2 were the last to utilise a Mezger motor, the GT cars – GT3 and GT3 RS – continued to be fitted with a Mezger six until the introduction of the 991 models. The engine’s most extreme incarnation came in the GT3 RS 4.0, where 493bhp was extracted.

Mezger was still present at a number of Porsche events post-retirement, always on hand to talk to the press and customers.

While the topic invariably turned to him and his achievements, he was always interested in others’ opinions of Porsche’s latest offering.

His interest went beyond a corporate role; he wanted to hear what had been done correctly and where improvements could be made. You felt his retirement was a formality, for he never really left the Porsche family.

The very best car companies are built on the innovation and expertise of the people they employ, and in 1956 Porsche made one of its most significant appointments in Hans Mezger. www.

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IGNITION 

AUDI RS7 SPORTBACK

Audi India has driven in the second-gen RS7 Sportback at `1.94 crore, ex-showroom.

The RS7 is based on the second-generation A7 sedan and is available for the first time ever in a five-seater configuration. It packs a 4-litre twin-turbo V8 under the hood, churning out a colossal 591bhp and 800Nm of torque for a 3.6-second 0-100 time, and is mated to an eight-speed automatic gearbox. However, the engine is paired with a 48V mild-hybrid system which provides an additional 16bhp. Also on offer is the brand’s cylinder-on-demand tech that shuts off one of the cylinder banks of the V8 at lower rpms for improved efficiency. The Audi RS7 Sportback positions itself between sedans like the the Mercedes-AMG E 63 S and ultraluxury four-door coupes like the Panamera Turbo and GT 63 S Four-door Coupe.

New arrivals

The market seems to be inching back to normalcy with cars small and big making an appearance

Variant Price RS7 Sp or tback

`1.94 cro re

Price ex-showro om , In d ia

HONDA CITY

HONDA CIVIC DIESEL  The tenth-gen Civic now gets a BS6compliant diesel mill in two variants, powered by a 1.6-litre engine mated to an enthusiast-favourite 6-speed manual transmission (no automatic transmission option this time around as well). On the inside, the Civic boasts a 7-inch touchscreen infotainment system with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, as well as a 7-inch fullydigital TFT cluster. In terms of comfort, it gets dual-zone automatic climate control, an 8-way electronically adjustable driver’s seat, and a multi-angle rear view camera.

The engine delivers the same 118bhp at 4000rpm and 300Nm at 2000rpm. The BS6 upgrade has also brought some added safety features, with six airbags as standard, additional curtain airbags in the VX variant, Vehicle Stability Assist, Hill Start Assist, Honda Lane Watch, ABS with EBD and Brake Assist.

Variant Price VX MT (D) ZX MT (D)

`20.74 la k h `22. 34 la k h

Prices ex-showro om , In d ia

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

The fifth-gen Honda city, perhaps the most awaited launch of the year, is finally here.

Visually it resembles the rest of the cars in Honda’s portfolio, especially with the Civic and the Amaze, courtesy the thick slab of chrome above the grille uniting the new LED headlamps and the eyebrow LED DRLs. The side profile is clutter-free and the City gets 16-inch diamond cut alloys. The LED taillights are sleeker and the overall design looks crisp and European. The engine is carried over from the predecessor though a new twin-cam head gives it a 2bhp bump in power.

Variant Price V MT (P) VX MT (P) ZX MT (P) V AT (P) VX AT (P) ZX AT (P) V MT (D) VX MT (D) ZX MT (D) Prices ex-showro om , In d ia

`10.89 `12. 25 `13.14 `12.19 `13. 55 `14.4 4 `12. 39 `13.75 `14.64

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MG HECTOR PLUS  First showcased at Auto Expo 2020, the MG Hector Plus is the larger, six-seater alternative to the standard Hector. Apart from being marginally longer, the Hector Plus also gets a few cosmetic changes including reworked LED DRLs, a different headlight housing, refreshed taillights and a different grille to distinguish it from the standard Hector, and shares its BS6compliant powertrains with the Hector.

At a starting price of `13.48 lakh, the MG Hector Plus slots between the Maruti Suzuki XL6 and the Toyota Innova Crysta.

Variant Price St yle MT (P) Smar t D CT (P) Sharp MT (P) Shar t D CT (P) St yle MT (D) Su p er MT (D) Smar t MT (D) Sharp MT (D) Prices ex-showro om , In d ia

`13.4 8 `16.64 `17. 28 `18 . 20 `14.43 `15.64 `17.14 `18 . 53

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L AU N C H ES WORDS by SUDIPTO CHAUDHURY

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HYUNDAI TUCSON

Hyundai has given its flagship SUV a minor update, something we first saw at the Auto Expo earlier this year. On the outside there are subtle changes like the updated LED headlights and taillights, both of which are sharper and sleeker, and the new cascading grille making the Tucson look a touch more modern. Under the hood is a duo of BS6compliant engines, in the form of either a 2-litre petrol making 149bhp and 192Nm, and a BS6-compliant 2-litre diesel making 182bhp and 400Nm, which also comes paired to a new eight-speed automatic gearbox, replacing the old six-speed unit. The Tucson goes up against some stiff competition like the freshly launched Skoda Karoq and the Jeep Compass.

Variant Price GL (O) (P) GL S (P) GL (O) (D) GL S (D) GL S (D) 4WD

`22. 3 `23. 52 `24. 35 `25. 56 `27.03

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SKODA RAPID RIDER PLUS

HYUNDAI VENUE IMT+  Hyundai has added a unique innovation to its enthusiast-focussed 1-litre turbocharged, three-cylinder petrol engine in the Venue with a first-of-its-kind clutchless manual transmission. The iMT gearbox, as Hyundai calls it, is a manual gearbox with a set of clever sensors that recognise when the driver wants to change gears and operates the clutch on its own, automatically. There is no third pedal in the car, while the gear selector is like a regular H-pattern one. Better yet, the iMT-equipped Venue is more affordable than the DCT. There’s also a new Sport Trim line with a bunch of red accents and a couple of new colours.

Variant Price SX (iMT) SX(O) (iMT) SX (Sp or t Trim) SX(O) (Sp or t Trim) Prices ex-showro om , In d ia

`9.99 `11.08 `10. 2 `11. 2

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

Despite the lack of an infotainment system being a turn-off for many, the entry-level Rider variant of the Skoda Rapid received great interest, with stocks currently sold out till September. And so, Skoda broadened the Rapid range with the Rider Plus variant which currently sits at the bottom of the range costing an extra `50,000 over the base Rider variant, but gets much-needed updates, along with subtle cosmetic tweaks including a blacked-out B-pillar, trunk lip garnish, and chrome garnish for the windows and door decals. The Rider Plus is mechanically identical to the Rider, with the 1-litre in-line-three turbo-petrol making the same old 109bhp and 175Nm. Though the 15-inch wheels have been retained, the 2DIN system has been replaced with a 6.5-inch touchscreen infotainment system, with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto that has been picked up from the Ambition trim.

Variant Price Rid er Plus Price ex-showro om , In d ia

`7.99 la k h

HONDA WR-V  Honda’s take on the compact SUV segment packs a sizeable features list and now gets updated 1.2-litre petrol and 1.5-litre diesel engines to meet BS6 emissions norms. Not much has changed on this facelifted WR-V, though it does get a new grille, a reworked front bumper, a new set of LED projector headlights and LED taillights, and new 16-inch alloy wheels. Inside, there’s some new upholstery for the seats and an added touch of chrome. That said, the WR-V already had a fairly extensive features list including a sunroof, automatic climate control, a 6.9-inch infotainment screen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, among others. The WR-V goes up against the likes of the Ford EcoSport and the Hyundai Venue.

Variant Price SV VX SV VX

MT MT MT MT

(P) (P) (D) (D)

`8 .49 `9.69 `9.79 `10.99

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WHY WE WEAR WATCHES WORDS by SHAMI KALRA

The California Dial Roman and Arabic numerals on the same dial? Sounds strange, and yet these watches are incredibly cool

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Casio Edifice ECB-10HR-1AER `29,000* edifice-watches.co.uk Casio Edifice is a sponsor of the Hondapowered Scuderia AlphaTauri F1 team, which has led to this new collaboration featuring the engine maker’s red and black colour scheme.

Bell & Ross BR V3-94 RS20 From `3.6 lakh* bellross.com Amongst a range of new ‘RS20’ models from Renault F1 Team’s watchmaking partner is this limited-edition piece, which is available on a leather strap or a steel bracelet.

Jacob & Co Bugatti Chiron Tourbillon From `2.09 crore* jacobandco.com This titanium-cased, hand-wound Chiron tribute contains a miniature W16 engine with a crankshaft and pistons that spring into action at the push of a button. (Yes, really.)

*Prices excluding Indian duties and taxes

HE ESSENCE OF THE ‘CALIFORNIA DIAL’ is extremely simplistic. A watch dial that consists of half Roman and half Arabic numerals. Generally speaking, numbers 10 to 2 are Roman and 4 to 8 are Arabic, however the classic archetype has changed and evolved over the years, varying from brand to brand to what is recognised today as the more youthful and edgy variant in one’s collection. But, where did this all begin?

There are an abundance of theories thrown around at action halls and forums as to why this dial was called the ‘California Dial’. One theory suggests that Californians just loved the mixed numerals on wristwatches in the 1930s and 1940s and another that California dealers in the 1980s were selling so many watches with this dial variant that the official types inherited the name. The accurate theory as to where this name originated comes from James Dowling.

Dowling explained that in the 1970s, when the vintage watch boom started, an LA-based dial refinisher, Kirk Rich, created some unique dials with this half design. The dials became so popular that many vintage watch stores in California sent their watches to Rich. Through this link, dealers and collectors started to call the watches the ‘California’ dial.

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The two key players within the launch and development of this extraordinary dial type were Rolex and Panerai. In 1934, Rolex started making developmental watches featuring the California dial in highly recognisable pieces such as the Ref. 3595 bubble back. These watches were effortlessly cool, clocking a 32mm dial, leather strap and rose gold. The California dial edged a sense of character and style into the classic designs, the watch of the modern era.

Two years on from the original inception

by Rolex and the Italian Navy requested that Officine Panerai make a very specific dive watch from a collated team of specialist divers. The watch criteria? Simple, it needed to be pressure and water resistant, also highly visible at night and when submerged. This was a simple brief, however Panerai did not make watches. They were responsible for producing diving gauges and equipment but did not have the specialisation in wristwatches. Panerai therefore sought assistance from Rolex to create this Navy-worthy timepiece. Rolex subsequently produced the Ref. 3646 which adorned a 47mm Rolex Oyster case and was held within a Rolex Caliber 618 movement.

A percentage of these watches were fitted with the California dial which allowed for great visibility both underwater and at night. It is recognised that the larger numerals allowed for luminous paint to be applied much thicker and therefore more visible. In 1942, Rolex was granted the patent for the half-Roman and half-Arabic watches and has since produced remakes of this very iconic watch.

Nowadays, slight variations of the California dial can be seen on new watches produced by a variety of brands and they look exceptional. The California dial speaks of modern design in an age of revolutionary fashion and creativity and if nothing else, puts a smile upon the face of the wearer, or navy diver.

IGNITION

WATC H E S WOR DS by H A RSHIT SR INI VAS

The Dakar watch you want is here Omologato launches the Dakar watch; to be tested by the crews of SRT at the Dakar in 2021 OR A GROWING TRIBE OF MOTORING enthusiasts, the love for motoring and watches is inseparable and that is precisely why Shami Kalra created the brand Omologato – to express his love for motorsport.

Active in racing including the Formula E championship and as the official watch of the iconic Monza and Watkins Glen racetracks, Omologato has now broken into the toughest event in the world. Partnering with Serradori Racing Team (SRT), the watch will be worn by eight drivers at the 2021 Dakar. And you can flaunt your love for the world famous rally event with the Omologato Dakar!

SRT finished inside the top 10 of the Dakar 2020 and for the 2021 event, they will be running their CR6 buggies and a truck. The team will be testing at Rally of Morocco later this year, before taking on the challenge of the legendary Dakar 2021, and that will be the first test of the Dakar watch.

The Omologato Dakar chronograph features several details that set it apart from

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Omologato’s other motorsport-inspired watches and make it appropriate for Dakar. It gets a matte black dial with Super Luminova. It also gets several colour options for the 22mmwide silicon strap. The movement is Japanese quartz and has a 100m water-resistance.

A great thing for enthusiasts is that the watch bearing the name of the legendary Dakar is affordable at `35,000. There are many legendary motorsport-inspired watches but most of them cost a fair bit. The Omologato Dakar can be had by a regular motoring enthusiast without breaking the bank.

The Dakar rally is known as the toughest rally in the world and the rally route has changed over the years, moving from Africa to South America, and now to Saudi Arabia. What hasn’t changed is the difficulty and epic proportions of the event. Solid, reliable performance in the Dakar could be quite a milestone for the young watchmaker. With the Dakar watch, Omologato seems confident of proving itself in the most challenging motorsport environment.

SPECIFICATIONS Dial diameter

: 42mm

Dial material : Stainless steel with robust IP plating Dial colour : Matte black dial with Super Luminova Movement

: Japanese chronograph quartz

Water resistance : 10ATM Glass : Flat sapphire glass with anti-reflective coating Strap width

: 22mm

Strap material

: Silicon Rubber Strap

Strap colours

: Black, Orange, Khaki, Navy

Price : `35,000, plus customs and shipping Order from

: www.omologatowatches.com

Driven

VW T-ROC // MG HECTOR PLUS // FERRARI F8 SPIDER // JANNARELLY DESIGN-1 // MAT STRATOS

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Test location: Pune

Photography: Rohit G Mane & Abhishek Benny

Volkswagen T-Roc It may seem steep on paper, but does this funky SUV justify the money it is asking for?

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S IT A SMALL SUV? IS IT A large hatchback? Is it a crossover? Where do I place the T-Roc in the increasingly confusing spectrum of cars, SUVs and everything in between? My brain started overheating. At 4.2m, it is shorter than the Hyundai Creta but then again, we’re no strangers to small SUVs. It is wider than a Creta, but then it is also just 1.57m tall and my Hyundai Venue long-termer is nearly 20mm taller. I remember checking out the T-Roc at the Volkswagen stand at Auto Expo 2020, but a car in a hall large enough to hold an A380 has no context. Out here in the real world, the compact-ness of the T-Roc is impossible to miss. Dimensions only tell half the story,

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though. One look at the T-Roc and you know it is unlike anything you have seen on our roads yet. Where do I place the T-Roc in the increasingly confusing spectrum of cars, SUVs and everything in between? The T-Roc seems to eschew the traditional boxy SUV stance.

Yes, it has got the typical Volkswagen look in that there are plenty of clean lines and tightly pinched metalwork.

But where Volkswagen’s designs in the past have come off as a bit… mature, the T-Roc is the polar opposite. It’s like a cultured teenager that has just discovered tattoos and hair colour. It takes the strong design that we’ve traditionally associated VW with and injected a whole lot of funk into it. The headlamps aren’t too outrageous and they flow into

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The C-pillar is raked down sharply like those expensive SUV-coupes that luxury car buyers can’t seem to get enough of

Facing page, bottom: The touchscreen is Android Auto and CarPlay compatible. Above: Digital cluster has customisable dials. Above, right: The layout of the dash is familiar but with unique inserts and vents

the grille seamlessly, but then the way the bumper is styled gives it a strong chin and the hexagonal LED headlamps look really cool.

There’s black cladding that runs around the car to remind you that it can deal with more rugged roads than a regular hatchback. On the side, the flared wheel arches add, erm, flair, but the real cool bit is the back. The C-pillar is raked down sharply and reminds you of those expensive SUV-coupes that luxury car buyers can’t seem to get enough of. Is the T-Roc the most affordable SUV-coupe you can put your money on? And that brings me back to my

original question — is the T-Roc an SUV at all?

Brain overheats again.

Things do cool down when I get behind the ’wheel because that infuriating question seems irrelevant almost immediately. The T-Roc is just a whole lot of fun! It’s a familiar experience — not too far off from the Skoda Karoq that I drove last month. And that’s because it shares so much of what is under the skin with the Karoq. Both have the 1.5-litre TSI Evo engine. Both are underpinned on the MQB platform. And these two key ingredients go a long way in making the T-Roc the joy that

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Driven it is to drive. If I had to bundle up everything I felt about the T-Roc into one word, it would be ‘energetic’. But I’d be out of a job if I attempted to review cars in just one word, so allow me to elaborate.

The engine is a real gem, as it should be considering it has Evo in its name! 1498cc of joy with a turbocharger latched on to it. It puts out 148bhp and 250Nm, and those numbers don’t just look good on paper. They do a darn good job of getting the T-Roc to move. The T-Roc feels quick off the line with lag under 1800rpm, but taking off once the turbo spools up. And while it is effective, it isn’t devoid of character — it loves to be revved to the 6500rpm redline, getting there quicker than I expected and sounding rather entertaining as well. While we didn’t V-Box test it, it feels like it can hit a tonne in under 10 seconds.

The DSG, as is always the case, works like a peach. It’s gentle in the way it takes off from

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standstill, but on the go, it’s snappy and works up and down the gears with finesse. You can pull back on the gear selector to put the transmission into Sport mode so it holds gears longer, though I just preferred taking control using the paddle shifters. Tiny, plasticky ones very similar to what was on the Karoq, but I won’t complain. Any paddle is better than no paddle. The engine-gearbox combination has a wide breadth of abilities — it manages silent cruising around the city without a fuss, and

comes alive when you demand more from it.

It’s also an engine that you can really wring out and use all the performance of without scaring yourself, or breaking the law and that makes it a thoroughly satisfying experience.

This engine has another neat feature — cylinder deactivation. Under low loads and while coasting, the valves of the second and third cylinder remain shut, saving fuel and lowering emissions. There’s an ‘eco’ notification that it throws up on the digital

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cockpit when it activates, but it could be lying to you and you would never know. The shift from four cylinders to two and back is utterly seamless and close to imperceptible from behind the wheel. Cylinder deactivation has been restricted to large capacity engines — the AMG V8s, for example — and I think it’s brilliant that Volkswagen is democratising technology like this. I mean, shutting off four cylinders on a big displacement gas guzzler has very apparent benefits and it sure makes sense to pump in the cash to make it happen.

The benefits would be far smaller on an engine like the 1.5 TSI, and yet VW sees sense in making that investment and engineering it in to its mass market cars!

Then there’s the ubiquitous MQB platform that the T-Roc is based on. We’ve seen plenty of it — Octavia, Kodiaq, Q3, Passat, Tiguan— the list goes on, in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Here’s a pub fact: the T-Roc has the

Facing page, top: The T-Roc has just about enough knee room in the second row, though the seats are scooped out well and provide good support

shortest wheelbase of any MQB car in India.

That pedigree of these MQB cars shines through — it feels stable and planted. Saying it feels European would be superfluous since it is literally made in Europe and then imported to India as a CBU. There’s a touch of firmness to it, and at lower speeds I found bad patches filtering slightly in to the cabin. It isn’t an SUV that you want to go clattering through broken patches on — it doesn’t feel like it can take as much of a beating as something like a Tiguan.

Mechanical sympathy kicks in and I found myself slowing down for broken roads. But all the while it feels taut and controlled. And then when you hit the highway, that tautness translates into immense confidence behind

the wheel. The T-Roc feels rock solid and unwavering in the way it munches down miles on the highway. Even more entertaining is how it deals with corners. It feels quick on its feet, eager to make changes in direction and encouraging when being chucked around hard.

The steering may lack a bit of feel and isn’t as weighty as I would have liked, but there’s a directness to it that makes you smile. It’s low slung too, and I’m pretty certain that aids dynamics as well. Out in the hills, the T-Roc is a real hoot — the chassis and the engine coming together brilliantly and making it feel very… energetic. How was that for elaboration?

The T-Roc does have some flaws and primary among them is space. The rear seat is tight in terms of knee room and the bench has scooped out seats making it more of a four-seater than a five-seater. The seats themselves are very comfortable and they hug you well, but the lack of knee room is a real

It’s an engine that you can really wring out and use all the performance of without scaring yourself or breaking the law

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Driven downer and will definitely turn people away.

Another disappointment was the quality of plastics on the rear door pads. There’s no polite way to put this; they felt cheap. The dash is all hard plastic, but it feels well put together. However the door grabs are hard plastic that squeaked when I held on to them for support and that was not something I expected from a VW at this price.

That aside, the cockpit is a very pleasant place to be. I found it familiar because a lot of the parts are shared with the Tiguan Allspace — the digital instrument cluster (though the dials are styled differently), the infotainment screen, the air-con controls and even the gear selector and steering wheel. The T-Roc does come packing a good amount of features to make its price more palatable including auto headlamps, auto wipers, dual-zone climate control, heated front seats (for, maybe, when you drive to Ladakh in the winters), a massive sunroof and six airbags. There are also some active features like lane-keeping assist and collision assist, though the lack of cruise control really sent our social media followers into a frenzy. Not that we’ve ever used it on any of our drives in any part of the country.

The T-Roc is a hugely likeable SUV, or crossover, or whatever you want to call it. It

Top: Large panoramic sunroof adds to the sense of space in the cabin. Above: The 1.5 TSI engine is properly entertaining

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The T-Roc does come packing a good amount of features to make its price more palatable looks and feels premium and expensive and has the price tag to match. But is it really all that expensive? In terms of its positioning it doesn’t really have any rivals and the only two that come close in terms of size and powertrain are the Kia Seltos and Hyundai Creta with their turbo-petrol engine and twin-clutch automatic. In comparison, the T-Roc does fall slightly short in terms of space and features, but the Volkswagen also has a more sophisticated powertrain and driving experience. And of course nothing turns heads like the T-Roc, which could well be worth the premium. L Aatish Mishra (@whatesh)

VOLKSWAGEN T-ROC Engine In-line 4-cyl, 1498cc, turbo-petrol Power 148bhp @ 5000-6000rpm Torque 250Nm @ 1500-3500rpm Weight 1350kg 0-100kmph NA Top speed NA Price `19.9 lakh (ex-showroom)

+ Fun to drive, looks fantastic - Space, quality of plastics

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Test location: Pune

Photography: Rohit G Mane

MG Hector Plus A third row of seats, reworked interiors and styling changes — how different is the Plus from the 5-seater?

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T WAS BOUND TO HAPPEN. The MG Hector is not one, but two sizes bigger than other SUVs in its price bracket — plenty to squeeze in an extra row of seats.

And Indians love seven-seaters, especially if they are SUV-shaped. Lo and behold, the Hector Plus came into existence. It is priced aggressively, as you would expect of MG, and slots between the likes of the Maruti Suzuki XL6 and the Toyota Innova Crysta. But the extra row isn’t the only change.

MG has tweaked the styling ever so slightly, but it goes a long way in making the Hector look better. The front end is less busy with the grille, bumper, headlamps and DRLs reworked.

In profile, the Hector Plus looks unchanged, running on identical wheels and the same wheelbase though it has grown by 65mm due to the new bumpers. Meanwhile, the rear end has been given a nip-and-tuck too with new taillamps, a new design for the Audi-style floating indicators, the red plastic bit between the taillamps deleted and the exhaust pointing

downwards with the two bumper outlets blanked out to give it symmetry.

On the inside, the layout of the dash remains the same, while the all-black interiors of the Hector have given way to a tan and black dual-tone leather interior in the Hector Plus. Quality of materials is good — just like we noted when we first drove the Hector last year. There are soft touch materials and the large touchscreen is a real highlight. The real changes are in the second row, where the bench has been replaced with captain seats. Space is ample and the seats are wide and comfortable. The seats are manually adjustable and you have more than enough room to pull it a few clicks in front to free up some room for the third row.

Now coming to the third row. Ingress and egress are fairly easy if you’re slim enough to squeeze between the captain seats — the lack of a driveshaft tunnel and consequent flat floor aiding in that respect. In terms of space, it is cramped for full-size adults but MG insists this is for four adults and two children. If the middle seat is set to a middle setting on its rails, I could squeeze into the third row with my knees riding up against the backrest in front of me. The second row could be moved further

M G H EC TO R P LU S

forward to free up more room for the third row — even when the captain seat is pulled in front fully, it has just about enough knee room for someone to sit comfortably. The main issue I found with the third row is that the seat is very close to the floor, leaving your legs in a rather uncomfortable knees-pointing-tothe-roof position. That aside, the headrests are supportive and there are blowers with adjustability specific to the third row. There is also an abundance of cup-holders (a total of three, for the two people that can sit there) and a USB-charging socket.

Obviously, the addition of a third row has eaten into the boot, but folding the last row down is a simple affair. One new feature that the Plus gets is the electric tailgate that can be opened with a swipe of the foot under the rear bumper.

In terms of the driving experience, the Hector Plus doesn’t stray too far away from the Hector. The diesel engine puts out 168bhp and 350Nm, making it fairly punchy and the BS6 update seems to have improved NVH too. The diesel comes mated to a manual transmission while the automatic (a DCT) is offered only with the 1.5 turbo-petrol. Ride Facing page, below: The Hector Plus gets dualtone interiors. Right: The second row has ample knee and headroom, while the third row (below) is very close to the floor, thus not having the most comfortable seating position

It has the added convenience of the third row, but I see the captain seats being the key selling point quality, as it was before, is soft. At low to medium speeds it is really cushy, soaking up bad patches and occasional bumps without breaking into a sweat. However, demand a lot from the suspension and it will start to show its weaknesses. Handling is nothing to write home about — there is a fair bit of body roll and the steering is lifeless. The Hector’s chassis isn’t one that you want to be demanding a lot from and when you’re easy on it, the second row is actually a very comfortable place to be. The seats hold you well, armrests are positioned nicely and you have a good view out of the front. View out of the third row isn’t great since you’re seated so low down, but the panoramic sunroof and the small glass panels don’t allow you to feel claustrophobic.

The Hector Plus is a comfortable SUV if you’re looking to be chauffeured around in and

MG prioritises the features list and space. Yes, it has the added convenience of the third row, but I see the captain seats in the middle being the key selling point. If you’re chauffeured around, these captain seats are a much nicer place to be than the bench of the regular Hector. What really makes the Hector Plus an attractive proposition is the pricing. It starts at `13.49 lakh for the petrol manual, while this top-of-the-line diesel variant I am driving is `18.53 lakh (ex-showroom) — which is `65,000 more than the 5-seater. That’s excellent value, undercutting the Innova Crysta by a fair margin and offering a great upgrade to those in the market for an XL6 or Marazzo. MG have found another sweet spot! L Aatish Mishra (@whatesh)

MG HECTOR PLUS Engine In-line 4-cyl, 1956cc, turbo-diesel Power 168bhp @ 3750rpm Torque 350Nm @ 1750-2500rpm Weight NA 0-100kmph NA Top speed NA Price `18.53 lakh (ex-showroom)

+ Comfortable second row, long features list, price - Lacks dynamic polish

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FERRARI F8 SPIDER

Photography: Andy Morgan

Ferrari F8 Spider The brilliant F8 Tributo has already given McLaren something to think about. Is its drop-top brother about to do the same?

S YOU APPROACH THE LOW slither of Giallo Modena your eye is drawn to the sharp edges, deep creases and gaping aerodynamic apertures. The more discreet S-duct opening in the leading edge of the front bonnet creates a darker shadow across the nose of Ferrari’s latest offering, too. Then the deeply scalloped sides, with their elephant hoof-sized openings atop the rear arches, draw in your eye as you check for any small mammals that may have taken up residence the previous evening. You glance at the door handle, question why it looks like an afterthought, but give it no further consideration. The door swings open. Light, no resistance, providing the gateway to the most important seat in any new Ferrari: the driver’s.

There’s still some idiosyncratic Italian ergonomics going on once you’re parked

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inside. There’s too much of your legs on show, not as much cocooning as you’re perhaps expecting. But you’re low in the tub, legs outstretched, arms kinked in all the right places when your hands reach the wheel.

Doubt I’ll ever be convinced by steering wheels with highly polished carbonfibre inserts; it’s all a bit ‘trying too hard’ for me. But it feels good to grip, thick but not BMW M thick, your palms resting on the leather, your fingers wrapped around it and your thumbs at ease on the edges. Thumb the start button. A whirr. A bark.

A crack of revs. A Ferrari V8 has come to life.

A Ferrari twin-turbo V8 that, if you’ve arranged the credit facility to release the money required to have your name on the V5C, sits amidship in ‘your’ new F8 Spider. An open-top Ferrari that, when you first approach it with its roof closed, you would be forgiven by all but the design department in Maranello

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The world contracts very quickly if you allow the Spider off its leash

for thinking it was a regular Tributo coupe. You need to look closely to see those two sections of roof and their shut lines that reveal the Spider’s identity along with the filled-in rear buttresses, which in profile give the Spider a little too much body and add unwanted visual weight.

Removing the roof of a modern-day supercar no longer results in a book of excuses to work around the shake, rattle and roll that tarnished the experience less than a decade ago. These machines are now conceived at the outset to be both fixed-head coupes and open-top roadsters. Their tubs are designed with the required structural integrity from the off, guaranteeing that a Spider differs very little dynamically, if at all, from its coupe cousin. It’s a strategy McLaren mastered from day one and Ferrari has caught up with in less than half a decade.

Roof open – slick and done in under 15 seconds, and more compact than that of the 488 when stowed – the F8 doesn’t deliver the aural enhancement you might perhaps have

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been expecting from both the V8 and the exhaust. At tickover, as you settle in and dial in your preferred settings on the Manettino, the engine’s note is a little thin and digital, as if it’s only being piped in through the speakers with the treble set to maximum and the bass

wound down. Emissions regulations have a lot to answer for, but my learned colleague John Barker, who has already sampled the F8 Spider, says I should persevere, because this Ferrari requires a few revs and some provocation before it becomes a fully fledged tenor.

FERRARI F8 SPIDER

Left: 710bhp, 3.9-litre V8, shared with the F8 Tributo, does a good job of hiding the influence of its twin turbos. Right: Familiar Manettino switch allows the driver to tailor the Spider to the current road (or track)

Dig deep enough into the F8’s DNA and the roots take you back to the 458 via the relatively short-lived 488, which is no bad thing considering both provided the platform for Ferrari’s mid-engined V8 family to flourish.

In the F8 there’s a healthy mix of 488 GTB compliance, useability and, this feels strange to write when discussing a 710bhp, 770Nm mid-engined Ferrari, friendly nature. But it is also combined with a good measure of the feral focus introduced with the Pista.

During the early getting-to-know-you phase there’s certainly no sign of the Pista’s pentup aggression as the F8’s gearbox shuffles seamlessly in a bid to claim the record to reach the highest possible gear at the lowest possible speed. This isn’t why you buy a Ferrari.

Click, click, click. And one more click. Nope, still need one more to reach third. The tacho

awakens, the lights embedded on top of the steering wheel illuminate, and the F8 turns to you and shouts: ‘Come on then, get on with it!’ Er, OK. If it wasn’t for the huff and puff and noticeable sigh from the V8’s turbochargers as they spool up and spin down, releasing excess air as they do so, you’d be unaware of the engine’s form of aspiration. Ferrari’s turbocharged V8 has been, since its inception, a lag-free zone, responding in a manner you’d associate with a four-cylinder VTEC

rather than eight-cylinder turbo. It’s harder still to comprehend when accompanied by a soundtrack of turbo hiss and fizz. What you are sure of is just how violent 710bhp feels in a car with no roof and a chassis that’s so confident in itself.

There’s not one thing that dominates or takes over the experience. Yes, there’s the sound of the air rushing over your head at a not inconsiderable rate of knots, but it’s not beating you up or trying to push your brain out of your nose because the air is being funnelled at supersonic speed down your ear canals.

Roof down, road opening up ahead of you, the world contracts very quickly if you allow the Spider off its leash.

Acceleration is savage (100kmph arrives in the same 2.9sec as the coupe, with top speed also the same at 340kmph), of course it is, because over 500bhp per ton (dry) makes anything feel on another level to a machine that is merely quick. Yet it’s incredibly linear in how it harnesses that performance and puts it on the road. The blend of power and

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Removing the roof from the F8 has little to no impact on the thrill to be had behind the wheel

FERRARI F8 SPIDER

torque makes for a bruising shove in your lower spine, but because it’s not a one-hit sucker punch it all remains balanced and controlled.

The staggered torque through the lower gears helps, metering out the delivery and giving the rear axle a fighting chance of doing its job. There’s still a small dust-up between the Michelin Pilot Super Sport tyres and the surface, but you’re always travelling forward, slip minimised with the French tread always remaining in contact with the tarmac.

Thank the F8’s damping for this. Ferrari has, over the years, quietly gone about its business in the ride department, finessing the relationship between the requirement for iron-fisted control on track and compliance on road. It has resulted in cars such as the F8 that can filter the surface and feed back the constituent parts in a way that few other supercars can. A McLaren 720S still reigns

supreme when it comes to ride control, but Ferrari is so close now that Woking might need to start taking notice.

There is a quality to the damping, especially when the ‘Bumpy Road’ setting is selected, that is such that from the driver’s seat you are delivered directly to the heart of the process.

The 488 GTB donated its springs and anti-roll bars, but the adaptive dampers have been through a further round of development to include some of the Pista Spider’s alertness and crispness. As a result there’s more detail offered than there was from the GTB, but it’s not as vocal nor as tense as the Pista. Within a split second of you stirring the V8, your senses tune into every revolution of that engine, every spring compression and damper action, and every response to every steering input, so it takes only a very short journey to conclude that removing the roof from the F8 has little to

no impact on the thrill to be had from behind the wheel compared to its coupe counterpart.

Let the V8 rev out – it’ll reach as far as 8000rpm, which is where peak power arrives too – in the first three gears and you’re hooked. Transfixed on the noise that’s now howling behind you, the tone rich and crisp, the bass filling in and wrapping itself around you. The higher tones that are lost due to the fitment of a gas particulate filter (this is the first Ferrari to be fitted with such technology) resulted in plenty of work being done to acoustically enhance the V8’s soundtrack.

This in itself is nothing new, but the authentic and natural result Ferrari has achieved is. With the roof open you’re privy to a more natural overture, an open-air theatre of noise that has a purpose rather than being the brash, loud sideshow for the sake of it that so many cars of this ilk fall into the trap of.

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Filled with as many Pista components as Ferrari could justify fitting to the F8’s engine (lighter crank and flywheel, and titanium con rods to name a few), it’s little wonder the power outputs are identical. But despite the family parts sharing, the F8 Spider’s V8 has a character of its own. Should you wish, you can snuff out the fireworks, leave the eight-speed as an auto, and then there’s no reason why an open-topped Tributo couldn’t be your everyday, all-season car. It certainly makes more sense than a Portofino in that regard. Roof closed and it plays the role of a mini V8-engined GT car, not so much wafting along but moving at a pace that demands as little or as much effort as you care to employ on each specific journey.

An F8 Spider makes far more sense as a car to drive as intended, though, because that’s when it’s at its best. Twist the manettino to Race mode, select manual shifts for the

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gearbox and Bumpy Road for the dampers, and any road with a twist or turn enlivens the Spider and you. Upshifts require rapid reflexes, and while the paddle’s mechanical action is robust and operates on a light touch, it still requires you to tense a finger muscle to pull the shift home. The gearing feels quite short, the upshift lights at times seemingly never extinguished when your right foot refuses to yield. And yet despite the violence that’s erupting over your shoulder, the Spider doesn’t deliver any shocks.

Brake hard and with assurance and the carbon-ceramics won’t let you down; they enjoy a solid push of the pedal but the result is just the right degree of pitch to get the F8 on its nose to turn in without the weight transfer nudging the rear into a race to overtake you. In slower turns Ferrari’s trademark quick steering still feels a little light in both responsiveness

and feel, although it’s actually a degree or two heavier on the F8 than it was on the last GTB I drove. And this slight weight gain is welcome, providing some resistance to work against. Yet when the speed increases and the conditions permit, the quick rack and responsiveness of the front axle feel second nature and instantly welcome. You absorb their actions, digest their communications and react accordingly. On a flowing, quick stretch of test route the paucity of input required by your wrists is almost Caterham-like when it comes to directing the Spider in the desired direction.

There is an abundance of grip to lean against, the Michelins finding traction and refusing to let go until you provoke it or get greedy with the throttle and clumsy with the steering. But this grip doesn’t result in a numbness; as with so many 21st century Ferraris the F8 Spider lets you in on the action.

FERRARI F8 SPIDER

FERRARI F8 SPIDER Engine V8, 3902cc, twin-turbo Power 710bhp @ 8000rpm Torque 770Nm @ 3250rpm Weight (dry) 1400kg (515bhp/ton) 0-100kmph 2.9sec Top speed 340kmph Price `4.5 crore (estimated)

+ Engine remains a masterpiece, rest of the car is equal to it - It’s a Ferrari, we get it, but `2.3 lakh for Apple CarPlay?!

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You can lean on the front end more than you first anticipate and get into the throttle way earlier than expected. There’s some scrub from the front when you’ve been greedy on the way in to slower turns and a little slip from the rear when you’re being provocative on the way out, both scenarios telegraphed back in time for you to react naturally and on your terms before Ferrari’s latest SSC (Side Slip Angle Control) 6.1 and FDE+ (Ferrari Dynamic Enhancer) offer some advice depending on how many questions you’ve asked. Both will also make you feel like a hero before stepping in and righting your wrongs before they get too expensive, although they’re not miracle workers and 710bhp, rear-wheel drive and a considerable number of kilos positioned in the middle of a car can still make for a mighty moment and an embarrassing audition for the latest YouTube supercar crash compilation.

Above left: Standard carbon-ceramic brakes use 398mm and 360mm discs front and rear respectively, behind 20-inch wheels; tyres are Michelin Pilot Super Sports. Top left: Handling near-identical to that of the F8 Tributo

As with the F8 Tributo, the new Spider builds on the 488’s talents, a car that took some time to show its true colours and personality.

Additional layers of detail bring the chassis alive further still, removing some of the digital focus and reinjecting a more analogue feel to deliver a more organic driving experience that brings the driver back into play. The steering delivers more confidence without losing any of its agility and razor-sharp reactions, and the engine remains a piece of engineering wonderment.

Inevitably, Ferrari’s latest is always going to be compared to McLaren’s. Some will prefer

the hydraulic steering and chassis control of a 720S and how it manages to bring a level of consistency to every road and its surface that few others this side of a Lotus can. Some will even prefer its gruff, laggy V8 and more purposeful approach to being a supercar.

But others will favour the more cultured and textured approach of the F8. How it’s able to relax when required at no cost to its ultimate performance.

A twin-test between the two will provide the definitive answer. Should we compare the two in coupe form, I predict Woking might come away with the metaphorical tin pot (we might even stretch to a carbon one). But should it be the Spiders that come together, my gut instinct would be that roof-down supercar driving gets little better than from behind the wheel of an F8 Spider. L Stuart Gallagher

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Jannarelly Design-1 Lightweight, mid-engined, road-biased sports car from Dubai arrives in the UK

HE SMALL-VOLUME, HIGHperformance sportscar battlefield is divided along two fronts in 2020. On the one side you have the track specials such as the Radical Rapture and Revolution A-One. Awesomely capable on track, obsessively engineered, and occasionally offered with just enough on-road ability for a weekend drive, provided you don’t mind wearing an ARAI everywhere you go.

On the other front is the burgeoning market for ultra-exclusive hypercars. Exotic carbonfibre bodywork, possibly electric power, most likely a four-figure output. They’re hyper-rare, hyper-expensive, and you’re hyperunlikely to see one being driven on the roads they’re purportedly designed for.

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In the middle of all this you’ll find the Jannarelly Design‑1. Lightweight, compact and driver-focused, it shares plenty with those trackday specials, but it’s also resolutely road-biased, capable of dealing with potholes and rain storms. Jannarelly also offers a tailored ordering process and the kind of close relationship between factory and client that you’d expect of the exotic supercar market, despite the Design-1 being priced at a level that prioritises enjoyment rather than investment.

On paper it also has the kind of specification you might put together if asked to create the perfect sports car. A kerb weight under a tonne, a mid-mounted engine of more than four cylinders, a manual gearbox, a limited-slip

J A N N A R E L LY D ES I G N -1

The Design-1 positively hurls forwards in the lower gears, almost overwhelming your senses

differential, and steering unsullied by power assistance.

The 950kg weight comes courtesy of a tubular space frame wrapped in glassfibre panels, and a footprint shorter than an MX‑5’s.

The engine is an unusual choice: a Nissan VQ35DE 3.5-litre V6, delivering 321bhp and 371Nm of torque and best known for sitting up front in a 350Z. Meanwhile the unassisted steering has been sourced from perhaps the best place it possibly could have been: a Lotus Elise. Suspension is double wishbones at each corner, with motorsport-sourced rod ends and pushrods.

When you know the layout, you realise the vintage styling is actually quite deceptive; with no prior knowledge you’d assume the Design-1 was front-engined. The details are a mix of 250 Testarossa and Aston DBR1, mixed in with some modernity thanks to groundhugging splitters and sills and a prominent rear diffuser. The design of the 16-inch wheels is contemporary too, but the tyres, 50-profile up front and 45s at the rear, again exude that 1950s sports car look in a way lower-profile

rubber simply wouldn’t.

At its most basic, the Design-1 is an open-topped roadster with a low, fullwidth flyscreen not unlike that of the aforementioned Testarossa, but there are three other configurations available: the roadster layout but with a proper windscreen, a targa-style arrangement with a buttressed hoop behind the cabin, and, as seen here, a full hard-top, which opens canopy-style on a pair of gas struts.

Open the vestigial door, drop a foot onto a step at the front of the seat cushion (which turns out also to be the lever for adjusting the seat fore and aft), grab the roll hoop with both hands, hoik the other leg over, and slide down into the seat as you would in a Caterham. Once you’re in you certainly know it. The seating is firm, the sides of the cockpit intimate, though with large cut-outs in the doors there is plenty of elbow room, and your feet are well accommodated over the floor-hinged pedals too. The view forward, first past the Nardi steering wheel, then the custom instruments and finally over the sculpted front wings, is

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probably the best flavour yet of that vintage feel implied by the styling.

The Nissan V6 fires quickly to life and sends a fizz through the car’s body, unmuffled by excess sound insulation.

Clutch and gearshift are weighty but the latter slots cleanly, and with modern fuel injection and gearbox technology there are few quirks to have to work around, no misfuelling chunters or recalcitrant ratios.

With so little weight to push along, the Design-1 positively hurls forwards in the lower gears, almost overwhelming your senses with induction, exhaust and wind noise and responses to the ground underneath. The bombardment of feedback fills you with that white-knuckle sensation of a car that doesn’t simply take speed in its stride like so many modern sports cars. You’ll grip the wheel a little tighter and stare at the horizon with just a little more intensity if you want to exercise all its performance on the average bumpy country road, and the chunky gearshift

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requires positivity to avoid wrong-slotting it as the car moves around underneath you.

These aren’t criticisms, though, it’s just the way the Design-1 does things, demanding a little more of its driver than some alternatives. The same can be said under braking – there’s no assistance, so the Wilwood discs and calipers respond proportionally to your right foot. Well, to a degree – a little more feel and firmness to the pedal would be nice, but there’s little wrong with the retardation provided.

Turn into a corner and the steering weights up surprisingly quickly, though the pretty three-spoke Nardi offers more than enough leverage to push through the weight and keep the nose on line. There’s that similar inertia-free response you get from an Elise, and with little weight over the nose and the engine close to the cockpit, everything seems to happen between the axles, with cornering loads distributed evenly fore and aft.

The steering is similarly garrulous, writhing slightly on straights and then relaying

Top: Hard-top flips up and forward, allowing a somewhat gymnastic approach to entry; open-top variants are also offered. Left: Seats have improved since the rather firm versions fitted to this early car

messages into every corner, though the extra weight does mask the most detailed feedback. What you get in lieu is slightly more movement than in Hethel’s products, as while the chunky tyres offer plenty of grip, the balance is surprisingly exploitable, at least with some moisture on the roads. Natural aspiration helps here, of course, offering progression to the delivery that allows you to ride out small slides on the power with just a tweak of steering correction.

The ride is quiet and pliant, the tall tyre profiles no doubt helping, and while its racy geometry means the Design-1 isn’t beyond tramlining now and then, it absorbs ripples smartly and soothes away rougher stretches with no compromise to body control. Again, very Lotus-like.

And the Design-1 should only get better.

Jannarelly has already reacted to customer feedback from earlier cars – it’s currently building chassis number 74 – making improvements to wind noise suppression and seat comfort since this already well-rounded test car was built.

Most importantly of all though, the Jannarelly Design-1 is a genuinely good sports car that does things a little differently to the cars we’re most familiar with but also stands comparison with them. The back-to-basics, road-going sports car isn’t dead yet, it seems. L Antony Ingram

JANNARELLY DESIGN-1 Engine V6, 3498cc Power 321bhp Torque 371Nm Weight 950kg (343bhp/ton) 0-100kmph 3.9sec Top speed 217kmph (limited) Price `82 lakh (in the UK, excluding Indian taxes and duties)

+ Engaging performance, involving handling, unique styling - A few useability quirks that later cars should iron out

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Photography: Jamie Lipman

Mat Stratos

It’s been a long time coming, but this Ferrari F430-based reimagining of the Lancia Stratos is finally here. Was it worth the wait?

T’S HARD TO IMAGINE A project that taps into the prevailing mood more perfectly than the new Stratos. It at once conjures the spirit of an untouchable icon, remixes a supercar that exists in that sweet spot where analogue and digital worlds were merging to spectacular effect, and satiates the longing of the superwealthy to attach themselves to something bespoke.

Part unobtainable concept car, part Ferrari, bristling with evocative Italian coachbuilding tradition, and with an intriguing backstory full of twists and turns, this remarkable car has

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all the makings of an iconoclast and cult hero.

Left field, but irresistible. Think Lancia Hyena or Alfa SZ, but with Ferrari blood running through its veins.

So what exactly is the MAT Stratos?

Well, the short version is that it’s built by Manifattura Automobili Torino, based on a Ferrari F430 or 430 Scuderia with a radically reduced wheelbase and all-new chassis setup, and costs from around `4.6 crore plus a donor car. For some context, a nice F430 with the F1 ’box currently is the most affordable, a manual is little more expensive, and a Scuderia as much as double the manual. Luckily MAT

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can offer a manual gearbox conversion for an F1-afflicted donor car. MAT claims that the Stratos weighs 1247kg dry (that’s 11kg less than a Scuderia, or 102kg lighter than a regular F430) thanks to its reduced size and full carbonfibre body, and that its own engine management, in combination with a Larini titanium exhaust system, puts the flat-plane crank 4.3-litre V8’s output at 532bhp (29bhp more than a Scuderia).

The longer version of this story is worth addressing as it’s a fascinating tale and also gives the project plenty of credence. This is not a car thrown together by a group of ambitious but inexperienced chancers. Even if it begins with a shrewd decision by a teenager back in the 1990s and a student design project a decade or so later…

Our teenager is named Chris Hrabalek and his interest in the mid-engined rally hero was strong thanks to his father, an owner and collector of original Lancia Stratoses. Hrabalek discovered that Lancia had allowed its rights

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to the Stratos name to lapse and snapped up the trademark. Around ten years later, now a design student at the Royal College of Art, he decided his final project should be a Stratos for the 21st century. Usually a few sketches, some CAD data and maybe a scale model might be the end of the story, but Hrabalek showed incredible tenacity to realise his dream in full-sized, rolling form. At the Geneva motor show in 2005 the Fenomenon Stratos concept car was unveiled…

Unsurprisingly, it was a huge hit and the project gained real momentum. One of the ten Lancia Stratos owners who’d invested in the project, a German named Michael Stoschek, decided to press ahead and turn show car into road car, with plans to build a run of 25 examples. Based on a 430 Scuderia, re-engineered by Pininfarina’s special projects department, and subtly restyled in places, but still true to Hrabalek’s Fenomenon concept, the New Stratos was finally ready in 2010. Media and social media reception was

rapturous and Luca di Montezemolo drove the car at Fiorano and seemed extremely happy with the project. Shortly afterwards he killed it stone dead by refusing to supply the parts necessary to build further examples.

And yet here it is. An early customer car from a small production run of this reborn icon.

Of course, the last F430s and 430 Scuderias long since rolled out of Fiorano, and even Ferrari can’t fully control what happens to cars from a decade or more ago. The project was revived when Paolo Garella, who’d headed up Pininfarina’s special projects department back when the New Stratos was first developed, was looking for a new opportunity. Garella had left Pininfarina to set up an operation to build Jim Glickenhaus’s SCG 003 road and race cars.

However, with production recently relocated to Sleepy Hollow, New York, Garella returned to the promise of the Stratos. He approached Stoschek about reviving the production plans, formed MAT, and now they’re finally delivering on the 25 cars that were promised back in 2010.

M AT ST RATOS

God, the new Stratos looks good. Small, knee-high and wide, with sharp details and drama that doesn’t come from sheer scale or gaping aerodynamic negative space framed with evil-looking turning vanes. It’s simple.

Aggressive. It plays with and accentuates the magic of the old Stratos, certainly, but even people who know nothing of the original get it. Not the way bystanders get an orange Lamborghini or a wildly specified Pagani; the Stratos is more subdued but has a sawn-off brutality that oozes intent. I love that it seems as wide as it is long, that it can a-l-m-o-s-t but not quite slip past unnoticed, and that it looks useable and designed for real roads. The Stratos may be hand-built in Italy and have Ferrari bones and organs, but I can imagine it appealing to the same sort of customer as a Singer-modified 911. Or a GT3 Touring, perhaps.

The door feels feather-light as it swings open, the glasshouse pinching inwards severely as it meets the roofline, just as it did on the original. Huge door apertures designed

Facing page: Interior is authentic but feels dated, lacking the quality that is expected of a `4.6 crore+ car.

Above: Bodywork is entirely carbonfibre, while the wheelbase is 20cm shorter than the F430 donor car’s

for a helmet (also just like on the ’70s car) make access tricky and you drop low into a simple carbon-shelled seat. The rear bulkhead is so close and the V8 is right at your shoulder.

It’s not claustrophobic, but you sense that the Stratos will be an intense and angry little car before the key turns in the ignition and you depress the ‘Start’ button. MAT cuts 201mm from the F430’s wheelbase and at 4181mm in total it’s not quite as long as, say, a Toyota GT86. In fact, it’s a whopping 338mm shorter than a new 911.

New Stratos might have money-no-object pedigree, but inside it’s extremely strippedback, plain and, honestly, a little disappointing.

I appreciate the bare floors, the carbon that shrink-wraps every surface, and the integral roll-cage. It’s consistent with the Stratos’ pure

competition-car roots. But the steering wheel, heater controls and instruments lifted straight from the F430, and the rudimentary design of the binnacle, are disappointing. It feels dated, but without much charm or character, and the quality isn’t even close to being on the money. Let’s hope subsequent cars are way more lovingly made and, for now, focus on the driving experience.

That 4.3-litre V8 really is in the car with you.

It starts with a trebly, thin-sounding howl, and the whole car shimmies and shakes to its fast idle. It’s a fizzing, thrashy noise rather than a cultured, deep-chested note, but there’s a restless energy that pervades every fibre of the Stratos, and subconsciously it seems to prime you for a busy, hyper-alert driving experience. One thing’s for sure, you don’t jump into the Stratos and immediately relax.

It feels like you could reach out and touch all four wheels from the driver’s seat and yet this tiny buzz saw of a car conveys full-scale intimidation. Very Stratos.

The first few miles are oddly haunting. Like visiting a place you knew well many years ago that’s been transformed with new buildings and roads. Familiar, yet disorientating. The

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Driven

The legacy of the original does seem to flow into the new car quite convincingly

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M AT ST RATOS steering feels like an F430’s in weighting and feedback, but the car reacts so much more quickly. It’s like it’s lost 250kg of flab and gained a huge amount of rigidity. All the slack has been eradicated – who knew the F430 had that much slack to chase away? – and replaced by razor precision. However, what’s really appealing is that unlike some modern Ferraris, the dazzling agility feels inherent rather than conjured up by an artificially quick steering rack. That short wheelbase might present problems later, but here and now, I love it.

The neatest trick that the Stratos plays is to feel extremely nimble, light and stiff, without ever descending into nervy edginess. You can quickly make the car flow. Now, I don’t want to paint a picture of quiet fluidity, because it’s a raw and pretty extreme experience.

New Bilstein dampers provide much more resistance to roll than a standard F430, the bare interior reverberates to the thwack of suspension impacts, tingles and echoes to the sounds of the highly strung V8, and the six-speed manual gearbox is physical and sometimes quite awkward. This particular car started life as a paddleshift F430, and whilst in theory the manual conversion is appealing, on this evidence the shift is not up there with an original factory effort just yet.

On sun-scorched and fire-damaged roads in California the awkward shift might be the only thing that doesn’t feel properly sorted, which is a testament to Pininfarina and latterly MAT’s engineering skills. OK, so I remain unconvinced by the general fit and finish of the interior, but the way the Stratos takes an F430 dynamic experience and makes it so much more aggressive and responsive, but avoids creating any snappiness or unpredictability, is very impressive. Start to sneak up on the very high limits of the Cup 2 tyres and the car does everything you want of it, just starting to push into understeer on turn-in and then remaining pretty neutral through the middle of a corner.

I’d love to tell you how the savagely sharp engine can then start to overwhelm the rear tyres and let you steer the Stratos from the rear like the old rally hero on its way to yet another victory. Sadly, the electronics aren’t fully operational and the manettino won’t switch between modes, nor let me disable the traction control. It’s a huge frustration and just another niggle on this car that radiates so much potential and nails the basics, but doesn’t appear to be 100 per cent finished.

Yet for all the irksome little details, the Stratos does inevitably seduce. That V8 sounds harsh and tinny at low revs, but loves to rev, and it’s more than capable of throwing

Above: 4.3-litre V8 from the Ferrari F430 makes a claimed 532bhp here – that’s a massive 342bhp more than the original Stratos’s 190bhp 2.4-litre Dino V6

the Stratos along at a fearsome rate. There’s none of the any-gear, any-speed thump we’ve become so used to with everything from new 911s to Aston Martins, or indeed the new Ferrari F8 Tributo, but the way you have to work for the performance is just another part of the Stratos’s demanding personality. It’s noisy and harsh at times, and it only truly makes sense when you’re fully engaged in getting the very best from it. And thank goodness for that. If it tried to take on the F8 on equal terms, the Stratos would simply be squashed. Instead it trades on extreme agility, iron-fisted body control, and a shrieking engine that’s linked directly into your neural pathways.

Can it possibly be worth the asking price?

That’s a big one. In cold, objective terms the Stratos is outgunned and outmanoeuvred by cars available for hundreds of thousands less.

A 992 has more grip and composure, a Vantage offers more easily accessible performance and less frenetic dynamics, and a McLaren 600LT has the same agility born of lightweight construction, but with even greater feedback and a broader operating window. And if you just want a great, normally aspirated engine, the R8 or Huracán Evo’s V10 is way more

special. Logically the answer is a resounding and unequivocal ‘no way in the world’.

Yet that’s not quite how these things work.

Just 25 Stratoses will be built by MAT, and for collectors bored with yet another limitededition McLaren, or those who’ve exhausted the Ferrari Tailor Made materials, colours and wheel choices and don’t want the expense of a genuine one-off model along the lines of the P80/C, this car holds huge appeal. The link with the real Lancia Stratos may only be conceptual but, unexpectedly, the legacy of the original does seem to flow into the new car quite convincingly. Small, relatively light, sharp as a tack and unashamedly developed for roads rather than racetracks, the Stratos feels like a car built only for the committed. Count yourself amongst them. L Jethro Bovingdon

MAT STRATOS Engine V8, 4308cc Power 532bhp @ 8500rpm Torque 519Nm @ 3750rpm Weight (dry) 1247kg (433bhp/ ton) 0-100kmph <4.0sec Top speed 315kmph-plus Price `4.6 crore plus donor F430/430 Scuderia

+ Increased agility, its looks, compact dimensions - Finish and niggles don’t currently justify the vast expense

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BIJOY KUMAR Y

Bijoy talks about the unique challenges faced by car companies developing new products during the pandemic

S

URE, WORK FROM HOME IS A UNIQUE experience. But when you must work on a car launch from home, it is one hell of a stretch.

Trust me, however well you plan a car launch, a lot of work gets done in the 11th hour. That is the way it is possible and that is the way it is done. And when the 11th hour involves four months of lockdown, the fun really hits the roof. To begin with, car production must begin from the production line. Easier said than done. This means scores of new parts being developed and tested on prototypes. This involves many suppliers who work independent of each other. Product planning, vehicle design, vehicle integration, vehicle validation and vehicle build teams work in tandem to make this happen. This job becomes even tougher when a brand-new platform is developed and mated to brand new powertrains. The prototypes are tested on various surfaces and subjected to different climatic conditions. Then the variants are decided upon, pricing strategy devised, communication material readied, advertisements are shot. Then you have to plan the unveil followed by the media drives.

Eventually the bookings are open, and the cars are shipped to the dealerships. Trust me, I made it sound easy, it is a far more complicated procedure where delay in any one area will mean the entire programme getting stalled.

But the system is in place for all the above. The car manufacturing process employed by big players can do all that, and as we are proving now, even with more than half of its workforce working from home. But there is yet another critical component that is beyond the normal SOPs. It is called soul. Now, it is an entirely different dimension that requires a whole lot of people in a car company to dream and imbibe.

In most cases, this starts with the vision of one person. This person ought to have so much faith in his thought process that a legion of employees believe in his vision and set out committing resources and time to make it happen.

It is the soul that you breathe into the automobile that makes it desirable. It is the soul that makes it different. It is this soul that the past feeds on, present relishes and future cults are made of.

It is this soul that gives the buyer an identity and a unique

lifestyle. It is this soul combined with capability that differentiates a Mustang from a Mondeo. A Corvette from a Cruz. A Ferrari from a Fiat.

As you can imagine, this requires people who are passionate about cars with soul across the departments. It is not everyday that they get to produce an automobile with soul. Perhaps once or twice in a lifetime... if they are lucky!

If you look at history, not all cars with soul were runaway success stories. Some were victims to circumstances, political and economic. Some earned their stripes long after their launch. Some ended up in racetracks and rally courses searching for their soul.

And then there are super stars.

I have to say, it was beautiful to be working with people who were developing a product that has this X-factor for the last four years (last of those four months spent WFH!). And I sincerely hope we have succeeded in building a machine that looks and runs the part. A machine in which passion was not compromised. A machine that is built to a standard and not just the margins.

For obvious reasons, I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t reveal anything more. But soon you will know what I am talking about. And eventually, after test driving one, will want to own it. Till then! L

It is not everyday that they get to produce an automobile with soul

@bky911

Bijoy Kumar is the founding editor of BS Motoring magazine and now heads Mahindra Adventure

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RICHARD MEADEN

Covid-19 is a wake-up call for certain car makers and their business models

I

’D HOPED TO HAVE BEEN ABLE TO MOVE on from Covid-19 by now. Unfortunately, as I sit here writing, we’re fast closing in on the 100th day of UK lockdown and our world has yet to start turning again in any meaningful sense.

Biggest news on the work front is that we’ve been able to get back out driving and photographing cars, the evidence of which you can see in this issue. As you can imagine this has been a real tonic, for after a lifetime spent on the move, spending three months effectively stationary has been a difficult adjustment.

I’d forgotten just how good long drives are for clearing your head.

And how much I still enjoy driving and assessing cars. It’s been great to be able to get in a new and entirely unfamiliar car, point it towards a destination that’s a few hours from home and lose myself in the driving.

As you’ll know, we always tend to head for remote places to drive fast cars in the manner their makers intended. Antisocial distancing, you might say. Partly because the roads are challenging and there are fewer people to annoy, and also because the scenery makes for memorable photographs.

Traditionally our go-to locations have been in Wales, with the occasional visit to the Scottish Borders or North Yorkshire. But with travel restrictions still in place we’ve been restricted to England. With overnight stops ruled out too, I’ve been reminded how few places meet the exacting criteria of a magazine drive and photoshoot. It’ll be fantastic when we can finally return to exploring the length and breadth of the UK. While much of the country exists in a furloughed bubble, two of the UK’s highest-profile car makers are fighting for survival. Both Aston Martin and McLaren had their troubles prior to Covid, but the pandemic has been brutal to marques driven by ambitious expansion plans and fuelled by investors keen to see a return.

Of the pair, Aston appears to be weathering the storm most effectively, though much depends on the success of the crucial DBX SUV. The departure of CEO Andy Palmer and appointment of AMG boss Tobias Moers as his replacement fuels speculation of greater Mercedes-AMG involvement in the future. In the meantime it would appear the AML ship has been steadied by outside investment from a consortium led by Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll, and with the DBX poised for launch, there’s good reason to believe

Aston’s perennially parlous finances may finally begin to recover.

The news from Woking is more worrying, with talk that the company might be insolvent by mid-July. This must be hugely distressing for the thousands employed across the group, but it’s also dismaying from an enthusiast perspective, for the cars McLaren has been building in the last few years are truly world-class.

It’s easy to forget how recently McLaren Automotive started with a clean sheet of paper. The 12C was far from perfect, but there’s no question its performance shocked rivals into action. Since then the progress McLaren has made is pretty much unprecedented and the cars have become warmer, tactile and more emotional machines that more than have the measure of Ferrari.

I’m no industry analyst, but what appears to have undone both marques are business plans that rely on building (and selling) too many cars. Nobody could foresee the cataclysmic impact of a pandemic, but I think most of us have felt for a long time that the merry-go-round of new models has been turning too fast. I’ve thought it for years, but now we’re seeing evidence that the world simply doesn’t need this many supercars.

Assuming McLaren secures the investment it needs to continue trading, it will be fascinating to see if and how the company adapts its plans. The cars are sensational, but there are too many of them and they rely on the same people to keep coming back and buying them. If I’d bought a new 720S and suffered a beating at the hands of brutal depreciation I’m not sure I’d be rushing back to place my order for a 765LT, however great it promises to be.

Encouragingly, Stroll has already gone on record saying AML will return to a policy of largely building cars to order and reduce planned annual production numbers to a level that maintains rather than undermines residual values and boosts the brand’s exclusivity.

Whether McLaren has the stomach to follow that strategy remains to be seen. What’s beyond question is that marques such as Aston and McLaren make our world a much more exciting place.

Nevertheless, a rebalancing of the fast car market has been long overdue. Covid isn’t the root cause of the car industry’s present woes, but just as the disease preys most readily on people with underlying health conditions, so it appears to be exposing weak or unsustainable business strategies. Sheer force of will and repeated rounds of investment can only go so far. L

I’ve thought it for years, but now we are seeing evidence the world doesn’t need this many supercars

@DickieMeaden

Richard is a contributing editor to evo and one of the magazine’s founding team

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RICHARD PORTER

Does Porter like the Aventador? No, but his boy doesn’t need to know that E LET OUR BOY PLAY ONE OF THOSE throwaway game apps that reminds you why parental controls should be switched on at all times.

No one wants to be charged a fat sum on their credit card because an excitable six-year-old changed the colour of his poorly rendered fighter jet. Except in this case it wasn’t fighter jets that our lad wanted to hack across the screen of his brightly padded tablet. This was a car game.

Normally he’s not so interested because cars can’t fire guns nor be smashed deliberately into a pixelated ocean, both things that seem to amuse him, worryingly. Sometimes I also worry about the conditions under which these disposable, free-to-download games are made, picturing murky programming bunkers on the off-grid outskirts of cities you’ve never been to, each packed with rows of whey-faced whizz-kids wondering when they might next see their families. Anyway, the designers and programmers, each allowed plenty of water and a living wage I’m sure, had done a good job with this particular game because the car my boy was hacking around an unspecified racetrack wasn’t some vaguely familiar pastiche of several real-life sports cars: it was a Lamborghini Aventador.

My son was very excited about this. He likes the Lamborghini Aventador. ‘Daddy! Look at my Lamborghini!’ he said excitedly. ‘Ohhhh yes,’ I replied in that way that parents do when they think they’re sounding interested while actually adopting the distant, distracted tone of someone who’s unwillingly having income tax explained to them.

Then I remembered something. ‘You know what?’ I said slowly, preparing to unleash a heroic fact I felt confident could make up for getting the beloved polystyrene glider stuck in a tree yesterday.

‘Daddy has actually driven one of those.’ Sensing this might not be enough, that my claim might be called into question by someone whose general understanding of lying extends little beyond blaming farts on his sister, I rifled quickly through my phone and there it was. A bright white Aventador, from the 2011 evo Car of the Year summit on and around the Portimão track in Portugal.

‘There you are,’ I said triumphantly. ‘I drove that car.’ The boy was impressed enough to look up from his tablet, and he usually doesn’t do that even at the sound of his own name/some crisps being

W

opened/a large explosion in an adjacent room. ‘You’ve driven that?’ he asked. ‘I have,’ I smiled. ‘Oh,’ he said brightly. ‘What was it like?’

Now here’s the problem: I didn’t like the Lamborghini Aventador.

For starters, it was too wide to enjoy on slender Portuguese roads, roads down which every other car in that year’s eCoty seemed to fit just fine. Worse than that, I couldn’t find a decent driving position, nor see out very well. So immediately I was on the back foot, feeling distinctly unrelaxed and frankly a little uncomfortable. Which might have been forgotten if the driving experience had been top notch but, to my mind, it wasn’t. I found the big Lamborghini a bit heavyhanded, a bit oafish. Also, the paddleshifted gearchange was miles behind the state-of-the-art, and that was before I’d experienced the senseless brutality of Corsa mode. In fact, I didn’t know about that until John Barker and I were out on track for a sighting lap, Barker driving, when we tried it for the first time and felt the unsettling sensation of a mule-kick to the back while a wrecking ball hit the front bulkhead. ‘Hmm,’ said John, dry like silica gel.

‘Won’t be doing that again.’ So no, I didn’t click with the Aventador. I didn’t even think the V12 felt as good as it did in the Murciélago and, just to show I’m not against large Lamborghinis, I really liked the Murciélago. Its successor, not so much. I remember coming away thinking the best way to enjoy an Aventador was from another car.

So what to tell my boy? The answer, of course, was none of this. To bog down a sixyear-old with his dad’s nerdish concerns about an ageing supercar is to completely ignore what supercars are about, especially if you’re still in primary school. Supercars are meant to be exciting and dramatic and to look great when rendered by 100 programming students locked in a basement by an evil app distribution company. It doesn’t matter how they drive. If you were really into that you’d get a Caterham or an Elise or a slightly smaller Lamborghini. An Aventador is pure showtime, and the way it speaks to my young son demonstrates that to a T. That’s the job of supercars and it’s not my place to spoil it.

Not for now, anyway. So, when asked by a six-year-old to sum up an oversized and idiotic relic with a bad gearbox, there was only one correct response. ‘What was it like?’ I repeated back to him across the kitchen table. ‘It was really cool.’ L

An Aventador is pure showtime, and the way it speaks to my young son demonstrates that to a T

@sniffpetrol

Richard is an astronaut, stuntman and liar

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Special bits from the incredible conversations we have with our fans on social media

Mid-Size Test

Our comparison test between the Tata Harrier, MG Hector, Kia Seltos and Hyundai Creta drew in some really interesting comments on our YouTube channel. We have sifted through them to bring you the best ones. Everyone has an opinion on the burgeoning mid-size SUV segment, and while plenty agreed with us, many didn’t! Go check out the other videos on our YouTube channel, drop us a comment and stand a chance to get featured here!

Apoorv Tripathi My favourite is the Harrier. Simply because it would be easier to maintain and is designed perfectly for Indian conditions. Features can be added as retrofit. Though it should have had more basic features from the starting variant.

Rajesh Jose I would definitely choose the Creta for being a cool and comfortable vehicle in almost all conditions.

Shriram Iyer Without sounding partisan, I would prefer the Harrier. A little drop in the prices would be great though. Build quality would be the first preference. Recommendations from Tata car owners is working for me as I know someone who owns a Nexon. Service centres and cost is the third brownie point. Rest of preference points are specialist like steering, corner handling, mileage. Most important, at `13 lakh starting price, owning an SUV is a dream. 10k EMI per month works alright for me. Second choice would be the Seltos .

Anurag Joshi I will pick up the Harrier... why? Because you asked which SUV you will pick up and the Harrier is closest to an SUV with the terrain modes, rugged chassis and suspension and decent off-roading capability. Out of the other three... one is an MUV i.e. Hector and Creta and Seltos are crossovers on steroids!

Abhishek Kumar Tata Harrier hands down. Land Rover DNA, Indian soul, massive road presence, little more expensive but worth the money.

Manjunatha H N My preference is Tata Harrier; It is real SUV; muscular, spacious, performance and finally it is a Tata, great Indian car.

Ramireddy Diwakar Reddy I’ll choose Creta’s sporty driving, with Harrier’s bump absorption, with Hector’s infotainment system and Selto’s build quality and that air purifier too. This what I’m gonna pick….

Abhishek Kusre If only Tata can update their infotainment system. It looks old and not as responsive.

Everything else in Harrier is A1.

Sangramsinh Patil For the term ultimate SUV it has to be the Harrier with its sheer presence and SUV capabilities. Others in the comparo are more of city-dwellers draped in SUV outfits.

Vinay Chaudhary My choice hmm… Harrier Harrier Harrier — anytime, anywhere :-) Without a single thought. All because it has every feature, comfort, handling and safety which really matters when you want to drive with confidence, bringing a smile on your face. So for me no comparison is required to decide.

Amit Saraswat It has to be a Harrier for me. And I just can’t miss the Dark edition. You see that rolling down the streets at night and it looks like a Range Rover! It’s all extravagant, a Tata which I never thought would be this good. Creta and Seltos are two faces of a coin, pinpoint similar and I still can’t get over the styling of the Creta. The Harrier is the best bet and the Tucson-sourced 6 AT is the icing on the cake now!

BaalReddy D Harrier in comments, Seltos on roads.

evo.editorial@gtopublishing.com

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F E R R A R I S F 9 0 ST RA DA L E

SPIRIT Built to celebrate 90 years of Scuderia Ferrari, the 986bhp, hybrid-powered SF90 Stradale is Maranelloâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most powerful road car yet. But is it also its best?

F E R R A R I S F 9 0 S T R A DA L E

HIS IS A SERIES PRODUCTION CAR. THIS is a series production car. The more exposure you have to the SF90 Stradale, the more you have to remind yourself that rather than a once-a-decade successor to the LaFerrari, this near-as-dammit 1000bhp mid-engined hybrid is the new flagship of Ferrari’s bread and butter range.

The timing is interesting, arriving as it does in the tumultuous age of Covid-19. This much is evidenced from the scenes at both the factory and Fiorano test track, where masked gate guardians zap your forehead with a thermometer before allowing you into the facility, and test cars are meticulously sterilised between drivers.

Ferrari was ravaged by the virus, but everyone is now back at work. Apparently the spectacular Marco Viscontidesigned factory canteen no longer offers freshly made pizzas – grazie Covid, bastardo – but as far as making the fastest, most technologically advanced and commercially viable supercars on the planet is concerned, it’s very much back to business as usual on Via Abetone Inferiore.

It’s also a return to familiar and, I have to say, comforting ground for Ferrari’s model hierarchy. Growing up in the ’70s and ’80s it was always a mid-engined machine that sat atop the range, be it a Berlinetta Boxer or the family of Testarossas that culminated in the F512M. These cars always seemed impossibly exotic to me, so when the elegant and understated 550 came along I found it a little perplexing that Ferrari had apparently stepped away from making show-stopping supercars.

Since then the front-engined flagships have become fiercer, faster and more extrovert with every iteration. Nobody needs a car as quick as the 812 Superfast, but there’s no disputing its star power in the showroom range. Quite how you top it, or indeed why you’d want to top it is a question I’ve asked myself whenever I’ve been fortunate enough to drive one. And yet here we are, standing in Fiorano’s leafy, sun-dappled paddock waiting with mild trepidation (and thoroughly sanitised hands) to experience a whole new kind of Ferrari.

How different became clear in the days before the launch.

Due to social distancing requirements there would be no technical briefing on arrival in Maranello. Instead journalists were sent a link to a dedicated SF90 Stradale website containing highly detailed information on all the main areas of the car, plus video presentations from key Ferrari personnel. This opus contained a truly overwhelming quantity of information, with many hours of video and many (many!) thousands of words devoted to everything from powertrain and aerodynamics to chassis construction, transmission, handling dynamics and

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THIS NEAR-AS DAMMIT 1000B HP MID-ENGINED HYBRID IS THE NEW FL AG SHIP OF FERRARI’S BREAD AND BUTTER RANGE

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infotainment. Fail to click on any of the documents and – so we were warned – Ferrari’s beady-eyed bots would snitch on us.

Detention and perhaps even a punishment detail would follow.

Homework done with never-before-seen diligence means I can admire the SF90 Stradale with enlightened appreciation.

Appropriately it looks sleek and futuristic. The nose is smooth with a pronounced shark-like profile and hungry full-width intake, which channels cooling air deep into the car. The cockpit appears to sit well forward – an impression created by the black turret top and sharply rising haunches – with a tightly cinched waistline to give the flanks sculpted physique.

It’s much busier at the rear, thanks to large venturi tunnels with complex vanes that pluck and tweak the departing underbody airflow. A pair of large, high-set centrally mounted exhaust pipes poke from the rear bumper with four oblong tail lights that – whisper it – have a passing resemblance to those on the new C8 Corvette. The rear decklid is the least pleasing aspect of the design, and must have posed the stylists major headaches as there’s clearly a lot of hardware and significant cooling requirements to package within the rear half of the car.

All this said, when we do head out onto the roads, the SF90 has a reassuring effect on all who see it; the nods, waves, cheers and hoots from passing traffic suggest the supercar’s power to excite is undiminished.

I’m almost reluctant to get into the technicalities of the SF90 because, frankly, we could fill several issues of the magazine attempting to describe the nuts and bolts. And yet, to gloss over what lies beneath its skin would be to ignore what must rank as one of the most complex street cars ever made.

In ultra-simplistic terms the SF90 is Ferrari’s first plug-in hybrid. It’s also the first in its class. We’ll talk about the hot, noisy 769bhp element of the powertrain in a moment, but for now try to wrap your head around the 217bhp electric bit. There are three motors – one for each front wheel and a third sandwiched between the largely new twin-turbo V8 and the all-new eightspeed dual-clutch transmission. Electric drive is therefore provided through the front wheels, which makes the SF90 the world’s first front-wheel-drive Ferrari – at least when it’s running in electric-only mode. But it’s also all-wheel drive when the front motors are driving the front axle and the V8 is powering the rear, and then above 200kmph it becomes rear-wheel drive as the front motors disengage completely. Still with me? Good.

The SF90’s 7.9kWh lithium-ion battery produces a peak of 162kW (217bhp), split between front and rear motors according to drive mode and road speed. The electric drive system is also used to replace reverse gear, and as a source of torque-fill to mitigate turbo lag. Not that there is much, but hey. In addition, the SF90 uses its front-axle motors to provide torque vectoring to trim the car’s line when powering out of corners, rather than using the brakes to nibble at the over-rotating wheel.

Combined, the petrol and electric motors produce 986bhp.

Ferrari has not disclosed an official number for peak combined torque (the V8 develops 800Nm), but the clutch and gearbox are

Left: Dials are replaced by a 16-inch display, the new steering wheel has touch sensitive pads and of course there’s the manettino which you now push for the bumpy road setting

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I T â&#x20AC;&#x2122; S A R E C I P E T H AT P R O M I S E S BOTH BLISTERING PERFORMANCE A N D F A S C I N AT I N G D Y N A M I C B E H AV I O U R

now rated to 1200Nm compared to 1000Nm for the F8 Tributo, so read into this what you will. Suffice to say it’s a recipe that promises both blistering performance and fascinating dynamic behaviour. Anything that can go from 0 to 200kmph in 6.7sec is going to scramble your brain. Likewise anything that can lap Fiorano at LaFerrari pace. The question I want to answer is: does it feel like a Ferrari while it’s doing it?

The answer comes in a short but sweet burst of laps around the most hallowed test track of them all. Thanks to Covid it’s not possible to sit next to Ferrari test driver Raffaele de Simone while he shows me the ropes, so instead I follow in his wake.

First a few laps to get the tyres up to temperature and get reacquainted with the circuit, then a longer run to cut loose and attempt to explore the upper reaches of the manettino’s dynamic settings.

There’s much to get used to. Not least the all-new cockpit, complete with Ferrari’s super-swanky all-digital HMI (HumanMachine Interface), which features a 16-inch display and new touch controls on the steering wheel. These include a small

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function pad on the right-hand spoke with which to navigate menus on the central cluster screen. The little lozenge-shaped manettino remains on the right-hand side of the wheel to rotate between dynamic modes (and now push for the ‘Bumpy Road’ suspension setting) and it’s joined by a smooth, touch-sensitive ‘emanettino’ on the left, which selects self-explanatory power unit modes, from eDrive through Hybrid and Performance to maximum-attack Qualify.

Being thrust into an entirely unfamiliar 1000bhp supercar that switches between front-, all- and rear-wheel drive is quite an ask. The moment we leave the paddock the SF90 feels like every contemporary Ferrari I’ve ever driven, and none of them.

Yet rather than bewildering, it’s exciting because there’s so much to learn.

What hits you first is how this car feels underpinned by a remarkable degree of detail engineering and dynamic polish.

Straight away you have confidence it is going to behave predictably. With the manettino in Race mode it’s enormously flattering – so together and consistent and grippy you can

F E R R A R I S F 9 0 ST RA DA L E

immediately relax into the lap. It prescribes its own limits in terms of lateral G and traction, but there’s such fidelity to the way it does it that you just feel like you’re driving on your best day. Smooth, confident, consistent. This isn’t a Pista-style track car, yet it works very, very well on track. The steering is quick, as we’ve come to expect from Ferrari, but it has soft hands, in much the manner a cricketer catches a ball or a pro golfer swings a club. It just feels supremely responsive and agile, but not overly jumpy, so you don’t end up turning in and then immediately winding off lock because you’ve turned in too sharply. It’s surprisingly intuitive.

CT Off loosens the stability system’s hold and adjusts the level of torque vectoring. It allows you to push beyond the limits of lateral grip front and rear and test the amount of longitudinal acceleration the rear axle can deliver. Immediately you sense your driving become scruffier and a little bit less consistent, but you also feel like you’re truly driving the car. In allowing you to make small mistakes you try to refine your driving, and in that moment you connect with the car more deeply.

After the control of Race mode it’s a touch unsettling. If you like a pinned front end to tell you where you are with the car, then CT Off pulls the rug out from under you a little bit.

But moderate your steering input, be more patient with your throttle application and the grip comes back, from which point, once you’ve got a feel for the front end, you can drive the car from the rear. With so much power and torque it will wriggle even through high-speed corners. Not necessarily enough to require a big correction, but sufficient for you to need to open the steering and let it settle. With ESC Off you can really light the thing up. It’s fun to feel the front and rear axles working – often in harmony, but sometimes against one another slightly – and you can definitely slide the car about, but it’s not as intuitive, natural or appropriate as in Ferrari’s conventional rear-drive models of recent years.

The SF90’s brake-by-wire system seemed like the main area of concern ahead of getting behind the wheel, at least from a feel point of view. Blending the conventional retardation of carbon discs with regenerative effect from electric motors

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is a fiendishly difficult challenge, but it’s one Ferrari and Brembo have largely mastered. During my laps the only time I notice a slight disconnect between pedal effort and slowing effect comes at proper attacking pace in the biggest braking zone, where I have a momentary sense the car’s braking is fractionally shy of matching my increase in pedal pressure.

WITH FIORANO DONE WE HEAD FOR THE HILLS. The Apennines to be precise, where we’ll explore the Futa and Raticosa passes. Famous as legendary sections of the Mille Miglia road race, these sinuous strands of tarmac follow the hills like contour lines on a map, hugging the slopes, cutting around crags and traversing plateaus in endlessly inviting fashion. Here you can hoon to your heart’s content.

Leaving Fiorano and working our way through Maranello’s backstreets towards the A1 autostrada is the perfect opportunity

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to mute the twin-turbo V8 and run on battery power alone. As with all electric cars it’s a soothing and enjoyable way to make progress. There’s audible whirr from the motors, but the SF90 is subdued and blissfully smooth, with a surprising lack of road noise transmitted through the (largely) aluminium tub.

The on-paper battery-powered range of 25km sounds inadequate, but it’s more than enough to see us away from urban areas and out onto the motorway. And while I’ll admit to once deriving enjoyment from rattling windows in a feral, fossil-fuelled monster, the way the SF90 slips in near-silence through towns and villages is impressive and far more attuned to the way the world is these days.

When the 769bhp V8 awakens (automatically according to battery status, or by changing modes manually) it kicks in with a growl that’s in stark contrast to the distant hum of the e-motors, but it’s a silky segue. Once running on petrol and

P O R S C H E 9 9F2E TRUR RA BROI SSF 9&093ST0RA T UDA R BLOE

V8 AWA K E N S W I T H A G R O W L T H AT ’ S I N S TA R K C O N T R A S T T O T H E D I S TA N T H U M O F THE E-MOTORS battery power you’re treated to a feeling of immense, elastic propulsion. It makes for a surprisingly refined motorway car that settles into an effortless mile-eating gait. Road noise and wind noise is muffled, the thump of fat Michelin rubber over expansion joints distant and unobtrusive. The new eight-speed gearbox is a cracker, too. Not that the previous seven-speeder lacked in the way of shift speed or smoothness, but combined with the torque-fill and abundance of readily flexed muscle, the hybrid powertrain only seems to accentuate the sense of nearseamless progress.

Pleasingly, the petrol V8 remains the heart of the SF90.

And rightly so, for it’s a sensational engine. Heavily reworked compared to its use in the F8 Tributo (capacity is up from 3902cc to 3990cc due to the cylinder bores needing to be widened to create more diameter for a central fuel injector), it’s a considerable 25kg lighter, yet develops 59bhp more. Peer into the engine bay and what you see is reminiscent of an old Super Touring car, the motor sitting at knee height. By reworking the inlet manifolds (to the point where there are short stubs in place of large plenum chambers) and repositioning the turbos, the engine has lost considerable height, with obvious centreof-gravity benefits. Together with higher-pressure direct fuel injection, new cylinder heads and new turbochargers, it has been comprehensively reworked.

Unsurprisingly, the SF90 devours the Futa and Raticosa passes. It disguises its mass convincingly and rides very well, combining pliancy with immaculate control that remains in harmony with the surface. If that surface becomes lumpen the Bumpy Road setting restores calm, so you really can attack on

Above: Electric front axle features a torque vectoring system dubbed RAC-e (Rotation Axis Control-electric), which is integrated in to the car’s other dynamic control systems

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F E R R A R I S F 9 0 S T R A DA L E

much of the head-spinning technology working so well you’re all but the flakiest of roads. There’s a clarity and precision to the entirely unaware of what’s going on beneath the surface. steering and handling balance that mirrors the confidence felt Is it a true Ferrari? In the context of 2020, absolutely. No one at Fiorano. Of course, you can’t push the car as hard on the road, else is building cars at this level of performance or cutting-edge but you can still feel the tyres clawing into the surface, and the complexity, let alone in series production and covered by the drivetrain working to deploy all that power and torque in the same four-year warranty and no-cost seven-year maintenance most effective way it can. Such is the low- and mid-range punch programme as the rest of the Ferrari range. It’s an extraordinary you can take corners a gear higher and still exit like a loosened achievement, but then it has to be for Ferrari to casually slide a champagne cork. new `7 crore (estimated) upper tier into its regular production Race mode would be my everyday go-to setting on dry roads, car range. for it is beautifully judged and completely trustworthy. CT Is it a great Ferrari? That’s harder to answer. By every objective Off allows more freedom – certainly enough to get yourself benchmark, yes. However, subjectively it doesn’t have the depth into difficulties if you take liberties – and really gets your of character to match its full-blooded performance. Not because heart thumping. The bite it finds on turn-in is surpassed only it doesn’t feel alive in your hands or require skill to take to its by the traction it finds through the corner. Few things are limits, but because however mighty and masterfully executed, more satisfying than retracing your steps and finding crisp a turbo V8 hybrid can’t muster the emotion or raw excitement tyre impressions all the way through the cornersPORSCHE and out onto 911 TURBO (930) delivered by a less powerful, naturally aspirated V12. the straights. Not from wheelspin, but from squeezing the Yes, this 253lb is meftcomparing apples with oranges. And yes, this is treadblocks and compounds pipsturbocharged squeak. Power 256bhp @ 5500rpm Engineuntil Flat-six,the 2994cc, Torque @ 4000rpm Weight 1140kg me Price conveniently the fact that Ferrari is embracing the Power-to-weight 228bhp/ton 0-62mph 5.5sec speed 155mph new c£12,400ignoring Value today £75,000-375,000 The brakes are supreme in most circumstances – youTop never future with all its might while I’m clinging to the last vestiges of hammer them as you would on track, so that slight mismatch in the present and pining for the past. But what the SF90 proves effort and response encountered at Fiorano remains hidden – but – to me at least – is that whilst Ferrari remains far and away those times where you barely need to brush the pedal do result the most impressive supercar maker in the world, even it can’t in a slightly sharp over-reaction that you can’t drive around. persuade me anyone should need or want to deploy this level of After a full-on day the SF90 Stradale leaves me awed and performance. At least not on the road. Ferrari’s achievement is slightly breathless. Both at its pace and sophistication. For mind-blowing, but the objective is flawed. L something so complex it functions with dazzling surety, with

FERRARI SF90 STRADALE Engine V8, 3990cc, twin-turbo, plus three electric motors Power 986bhp (combined) @ 7500rpm Torque n/a (see text) Weight (dry) 1570kg Power-to-weight (dry) 638bhp/ton 0-100kmph 2.5sec Top speed 377kmph Price `7 crore (estimated)

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A LT R OZ v BA L E N O v P O LO v I 2 0

WO R D S b y S I R I S H C H A N D R A N P H O T O G R A P H Y b y RO H I T G M A N E

B A C K I N V O G U E In the rush of SUVs weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d forgotten that premium hatchbacks even exist. That is set to change

IT HAS BEEN AGES SINCE MY first and only time behind the ’wheel of the Altroz, and it’s not like I was caught up with big V8s and didn’t bother asking for one. First, of course, Tata Motors wanted us to wait till they announced prices.

Then their supplier’s warehouse got gutted and cars got stuck on the line without headlamps. Then we got busy with the Auto Expo. And then the pandemic struck and everything ground to a halt. Seven months since I first sampled the Altroz on arrow-straight roads around Jaisalmer and we’ve finally got our hands on another one, and I must say it still looks fantastic. It hasn’t aged one bit, helped by the fact that I haven’t seen a single one on the road, so the novelty factor remains strong.

That slim, thrusting nose; the sliver of chrome framing the headlamps; the blacked-out window line that gives it the impression of a rising shoulder line; the blackedout roof flowing into the tailgate; the door handles in the C-pillars; the muscle in the arches; it really is a very good looking car. And it will continue to turn heads even when the new i20 hits our roads very soon.

Of course you’ve seen images of Hyundai’s new i20

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that is just a month or two away — it’s all over social media. And while not as polarising as the Creta, well, it isn’t going to be universally loved like the Altroz.

Anyway, that’s a topic for later — we still have this Elite i20 and it doesn’t look half bad, does it? It’s still pleasing to the eye and, more importantly, has good proportions. In fact the wheel arch gaps are better resolved than on the Altroz, as are the panel gaps. Look closely at the Tata and you will not notice gaping gaps but you will notice inconsistencies in the gaps.

As for the Polo, there’s nothing I can say that hasn’t already been said before. Yes it is a ten-year-old car. Yes it is way too familiar. And yes, it has aged remarkably well.

The Baleno you see here is before the BS6 facelift that has sharpened up the nose with a new bumper, projector headlamps, wider grille and new alloys.

It also gets an uprated engine with the power up by 7bhp thanks to the SVHS mild-hybrid system that also includes automatic stop-start, brake energy regeneration which is then used to torque-fill, and better fuel efficiency too. We will have a test of that soon, but we had to have a Baleno in this test and so borrowed a friend’s mum’s car. After all a comparison of premium hatches would be woefully incomplete without the car everybody is buying.

Below: Altroz grips well, even in the wet; digital tacho and analogue speedo with a shape that is hard to define; 7-inch infotainment screen

A LT R OZ v BA L E N O v P O LO v I 2 0

SEVEN MONTHS SINCE WE FIRST SAMPLED THE A LT R O Z , W E ’ V E F I N A L LY GOT OUR HANDS ON ANOTHER ONE, AND IT STILL LOOKS F A N TA S T I C ; H A S N ’ T AG E D O N E B IT

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STICKING TO THE ENGINES, I MUST highlight that both the Baleno and Polo no longer get diesels. The Baleno sticks with the 1.2-litre K12B 4-cylinder with and without SVHS and it is the former we have here on test — a wonderfully refined motor.

The refinement, silence, absolute lack of vibrations and smooth power delivery does the hard-earned reputation of Japanese engines proud. At a gentle cruise you cannot hear the powertrain at all, and this particular example is mated to a CVT gearbox that is a delight for pottering around in the city. It is such an easy, undemanding car to drive at eight-tenths. Great visibility, good driving position, lots of space, wide and supportive driver’s seat, spot-on ergonomics, no wonder our friend’s mum swears by it. Push it though and there’s a pronounced rubber-band effect from the CVT, and because the engine is revving its head off the noise levels are rather alarming.

On paper this is the least powerful in this test but because it is also the lightest — by a fair margin! — it

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doesn’t feel underpowered. I suspect with SVHS the Baleno will be even quicker and, with experience, I know the manual gearbox will make it great fun to cane the engine.

It is the i20’s 1.2-litre mill that you could term dated.

Refinement is great but it doesn’t rev as eagerly as the Baleno, nor is it as powerful. But then again there’s a turbo-engine coming in the new i20 and that will turn the tables around as far as the fun factor goes.

If you’re looking for fun though you have only one option and that is the Polo TSI. This is the only turbocharged petrol motor in this segment (the Baleno RS wasn’t upgraded for the BS6 era) and with 108bhp it kicks out over 20 horses more than its rivals. That’s a massive advantage, which is further cemented by 50 per cent more torque than the other petrols — which makes it an absolute delight. At idle and low revs you can feel that irregular idle and thrum so unique to 3-cylinder engines, and it is on the noisy side, but floor it and you won’t care at all. Not only does it have a rapid

Facing page, top to bottom: Altroz looks the most modern in this test; i20 is due for an update very soon but still has very good fit-finish; Polo is all too familiar but has the nicest steering wheel; Baleno has the option of a CVT

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THE POLO IS NOT JUST THE MOST FUN TO DRIVE I N T H I S T E S T, IT IS THE MOST FUN TO DRIVE BY A C O U NTRY MILE

turn of speed (0-100kmph in just under 10 seconds) but get it past 2000-2200rpm and there’s a wave of torque that’s intoxicating. It is not just the most fun to drive in this test, it is the most fun to drive by a country mile.

As for the Altroz, the version we have on test here is the diesel. I dug through my notes on the petrol (seven months is long enough to forget a few things) and turns out this 1.5-litre 4-cylinder diesel is more powerful, considerably more torquey and scores higher on refinement than the 3-cylinder 1.2 petrol. In fact, on my first drive I did say that the diesel is the engine to opt for, particularly since the petrol ran out of steam way too early on Jaisalmer’s empty and endless roads.

This diesel is Tata Motors’ own engine, BS6 has killed off Fiat’s 1.3 Multijet, and the torque makes overtaking easier on the highway. The only downside to the engine is the lethargic throttle response — stomp on the accelerator and it counts down from three before responding. Otherwise the motor has the juice to push the chassis. Which is rather good.

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TATA MOTORS HAVE ALWAYS DELIVERED cars that ride and handle extremely well and the Altroz builds on that reputation. It rides like a far bigger and far more grown-up car, smothering bumps and filtering out road shocks. Of all the cars here, the Altroz is the least unsettled by bad roads, and over smaller speed breakers you do not even need to slow down. In keeping with trends this new Alpha-arc platform has been extensively lightened but it isn’t a feather-weight like the Baleno and that makes it feel more planted, less flighty, and less eager at transmitting every single road ripple and undulation into the cabin.

The handling is also surefooted, it grips well and there’s not much body roll. In fact the Polo has more body roll, but the Polo also feels more involving, thanks to steering than isn’t as light or lifeless as the Altroz’s.

In the city or during tight manoeuvres, the Polo does feel like it has an overly heavy steering but that steering weight is what delivers oodles of confidence when you pick up speed (which the Polo does, so easily). The chassis gives the Polo a planted, solid stance that fills you with confidence, and the very high torsional rigidity allows for softer suspension settings that enables a good ride too. Throw it into bends and there is plenty of body roll but at the same time it also has the most cornering grip and the best feedback and sensations through the steering wheel.

As for the i20, the ride is on the firmer side and is no where as compliant as the Altroz. The steering too is very light and completely lacking in feel which means you don’t get as much confidence to push it through corners. Though when you do push it, the grip levels are surprisingly good.

This is one area where the Baleno does not shine.

The example we have here is on 15-inch steel rims and the narrow tyres squeal and understeer at the slightest hint of a corner. The 16s get wider tyres but those too, from experience, are undertyred and incapable of highlighting the abilities of the chassis.

I should know. Two years ago I slapped on MRF rally rubber on a Baleno RS and in my first outing at an Autocross event I went second fastest, bested only by an Autocross regular who borrowed the very same car.

Slap on quality rubber and you realise the Baleno has a very eager and responsive nose and the light chassis delivers quick direction changes. The Baleno RS would have made for a great rally car! But what cannot be cured is the steering that is vague, imprecise and doesn’t have proper self-centring.

As for the ride quality, the Baleno feels brittle, stiff and light. The sense of lightness — starting with the way the doors shut, to the (lack of) steering weight, to the way the suspension jars over rough roads — doesn’t encourage you to drive it enthusiastically.

Clockwise from top left: Baleno is the most spacious with the most shoulder room as well; Altroz is the next best when it comes to space but the seat back angle is too upright; the i20 runs the Altroz a close third; the Polo is the most cramped

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OF ALL THE CARS HERE, T H E A LT R O Z I S T H E LEA ST UNSET TLED BY P O O R ROADS

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I HAVEN’T SPOKEN ABOUT WHAT THESE cars feel like from the inside. Let’s start with the Polo that is, again, way too familiar, way too old and way too cramped. The all-black theme and the lovely flatbottom steering wheel do redeem some points, as does the good driving position, but this is a car you will buy to drive, and not for any other reason.

The Baleno too gets all-black interiors, but in contrast to the Polo it is massively spacious. The front seats are the most supportive and the rear knee room is the most generous, as is the shoulder room. The spaciousness is one of the reasons why it sells so well, as is the fantastic reliability and peace of mind that Suzuki still outscores everybody else on. I am not a fan of the dashboard design but it has to be said that the ergonomics are perfect and variants with the touchscreen do get all the connectivity options that you would want.

Well, that is until the new i20 comes and brings connected car features to this class. For now though the i20 still doesn’t feel cramped and the front seats are, along with the Baleno’s, the most comfortable in this test. The touchscreen infotainment too works

rather well and of course build quality and fit-finish is very good.

As for the Altroz, the A-pillars are really thick and do compromise visibility. I did criticise the dash for having too many different surfaces and materials but there’s no doubt that this is the best-looking of the lot. Then there are the doors that swing open at right angles to the car, aiding ingress-egress. It is a close third to the i20 on spaciousness but there are a few ergonomic niggles. The steering doesn’t adjust for reach and that means I couldn’t get a good driving position with my legs bent more than I would have liked. My bent knee highlights the fact that the front seats have a narrow squab and don’t offer proper under-thigh support, and the shape of the seat is such that there’s a portion that digs into the upper half of your back. At the back, the recline angle is too upright and again the seat squab is narrow and lacking in under-thigh support.

The Altroz is the only one to get a digital cockpit which is a nice touch. Not so nice is the weird shape of the speedo that isn’t a square or a circle, and the digital tacho is hard to read.

N O N E E D F O R N AT I O N A L I S T C H E S T - T H U M P I N G ; T H E

MARUTI SUZUKI BALENO ZETA CVT

HYUNDAI I20 ASTA (O) MT

Engine In-line 4-cyl, 1197cc, petrol Transmission 5-speed manual/ CVT Power 82bhp @ 6000rpm Torque 113Nm @ 4200rpm Weight 935kg Power-to-weight 88bhp/ton Safety 3 stars Euro-NCAP Price `8.33 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi)

Engine In-line 4-cyl, 1197cc, petrol Transmission 5-speed manual Power 82bhp @ 6000rpm Torque 114Nm @ 4000rpm Weight NA Power-to-weight NA Safety 3 stars G-NCAP Price `8.3 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi)

FINALLY LET’S TALK SAFETY. THE ALTROZ gets a full five stars on the G-NCAP crash test and that’s good enough reason to crown it the winner. You can always live without a few features or a little less space or a weirdly shaped speedo, but safety is something you must never, ever compromise on. And having proven its worth in the crash tests, it’s not only easy but also my responsibility to recommend the Altroz over the others in this test.

Safety is not the only reason why the Tata wins this test. It is the best-looking, by far. The interiors are equally pleasing on the eye and are the most modern.

The ride and handling balance is very well judged for Indian roads. It is and feels well engineered, right from the start. And it undercuts its rivals on pricing. No need for nationalist chest-thumping; the Altroz scores on all fronts to ace this test.

Of course, the Baleno continues to remain the tried, tested and zero-worry option. Not without reason will you not want to experiment and the Baleno is impossible to ignore especially when you know that nothing will go wrong with it. Time and again Maruti

Suzuki’s cars have proved to be the most reliable when it comes to long-term ownership and they also deliver the best fuel efficiency and thus cost the least to own and run. On top of that the Baleno is also the most spacious in this test and with the CVT is the lightest, easiest, most effortless city car around.

And Toyota sells the same car, the Glanza, in case you want to try out the only other network that has a similar reputation for quality.

The i20 still doesn’t feel dated in this test but fact is there’s a new one coming, with a turbo-engine to boot.

Right now though, there’s only the Polo with a turbopetrol and it is, by far and away, the most fun to drive.

Sure it doesn’t have the extensive feature list as the others, and it is cramped and it has been around for a decade but, after the Altroz, the Polo is the safest car in this test with 4 stars in the crash tests (remarkable for a ten-year-old car). And for the same price as the naturally aspirated and (frankly underpowered) rivals, you get an award-winning, intoxicating, massively enjoyable turbo-petrol engine. It is a no-brainer for the enthusiast! L

A LT R O Z S C O R E S O N A L L F R O N T S T O A C E T H I S T E S T

TATA ALTROZ XZ (O) MT

VOLKSWAGEN POLO TSI EDITION

Engine In-line 4-cyl, 1497cc, turbo-diesel Transmission 5-speed manual Power 89bhp @ 4000rpm Torque 200Nm @ 12503000rpm Weight NA Power-to-weight NA Safety 5 stars G-NCAP Price `9.29 lakh (ex-showroom, pan India)

Engine In-line 3-cyl, 999cc, turbo-petrol Transmission 6-speed manual Power 108.5bhp @ 5000-5500rpm Torque 175Nm @ 17504000rpm Weight 1072kg Power-to-weight 101.2bhp/ton Safety 4 stars G-NCAP Price `7.89 lakh (ex-showroom, pan India)

WORDS by JETHRO BOVINGDON | P H O T O G R A P H Y by D E A N S M I T H

MOUNTAIN HIGH When the McLaren P1 was launched in 2013 it mesmerised with its freakish abilities.

Seven years on, has time, and progress, dulled that brilliance? We find out on the twisting roads of the Pyrenees

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‘N

INE HUNDRED AND THREE.’ I’VE lost count of the number of times I’ve said it in the past 24 hours. There will be dozens more in the next couple of days.

But for some reason right now, at a tiny Repsol station in La Molina, it dawns on me just how outrageous the McLaren P1 remains. The station is one of those strange petrol station/ café/workshop/community centre/off licences you only get in small-town Spain. When I arrived there were two people sitting outside, smoking and drinking coffee. Or maybe something stronger. Now – less than five minutes later – there must be 15 or 20 and nearly as many scooters and beaten-up SEATs crammed into the forecourt. ‘How much horsepower?’ somebody asks.

‘Nine hundred and three.’ His eyes almost pop out of his skull before his friend repeats it back, shaking his head, laughing and pointing his phone at the P1 with its door raised to the sky. I’m standing next to him doing exactly the same.

The run down from the peak of Puigllançada, in northeastern Spain, had been slow and easy, the P1 on fumes and the last dregs of battery power and its driver pretty much spent, too. But the run up the preceding spectacular ridge demonstrated what 903bhp was all about. A frantic few minutes that crystallised why we came all the way to Spain in the first place with little more than a rough plan to drive from Barcelona on the north-eastern coast all the way to Bilbao. A haphazard road trip taking in the best roads of the blissfully empty Pyrenees to investigate whether McLaren’s first Ultimate Series car still feels as insanely potent and laser precise as it did back in 2013. To chart the trajectory of the supercar and hypercar and ponder what’s left behind when similar performance is now available in a car as ‘normal’ as the new 992 Turbo. Annoyingly, we’re only two hours into our journey and I’m pretty much sold on the P1. In short, it is completely and utterly unhinged.

Of course, the raw numbers – 903bhp, 900Nm, 1490kg – say that it has to be… but casting my mind back to 2013 and all the hype surrounding the ‘Holy Trinity’ (wow, that sounds cringeworthy now, doesn’t it?), the real excitement around the P1 centred on its track performance and unprecedented downforce in Race mode. You know the script: Select Race and the P1 drops 50mm and the spring rate increases by 300 per cent. Simultaneously the hydraulics do their shapeshifting magic, rear wing extending 300mm and adjusting its angle for maximum downforce.

Thus configured, McLaren claimed 600kg of load at 260kmph, at which point the P1 starts trimming its aero devices to ‘spill’ downforce away so as not to overload the suspension. How cool does that sound? It seemed almost by the by that the P1 would hit 350kmph and do 0-200kmph in 6.8sec. You got a whole heap of tech and aero harnessed to deliver incredible track performance. The three new hypercars each had its own distinct personality. The 918 Spyder was stunningly well resolved, the LaFerrari used hybrid technology to elevate the V12’s intensity to a new plane, and the P1 was all about celebrating McLaren’s motorsport pedigree. We had them all worked out.

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Only maybe we didn’t. Whilst the petrol station crowd continues to take selfies, all I can think about is how crazed and industrial the P1 felt back on that amazing climb. Laserguided? Only if the beam fires out as thick as a tree trunk from a gnarly old pump-action shotgun and the kickback nearly rips your shoulder from its socket. As supercar owners seem to be so fond of wraps, I’d suggest a Millennium Falcon theme would suit the P1 nicely. It’s a spaceship hot-rod.

Of course, Race mode is only for the track, and aero at 260kmph doesn’t count for much on a mountain pass. On these roads you simply have the grip of two 315-section rear tyres to channel the instantly available power. To call it a busy, bruising experience is an understatement. The P1 feels at once constrained and so powerful that it’s running out of your control. A cacophony of turbo shrieks, sci-fi electric motor sounds, rapidly blurring numbers on the digital display and the sound of those tyres being assaulted. Nine hundred and three. The shock of it isn’t diminished one bit.

It’s pitch-black when we roll out of La Molina and continue to head west, now on the N-260. Seemingly endless, ever changing and punctuated by beautiful little towns, sudden steep climbs and flat, perfectly sighted sections that run along the valley floor. It is bliss.

Even so, the P1 is running at less than half pace. Instead I’m exploring a side to the car that wasn’t really possible in the launch phase, so keen were we to experience it at full noise on track. Now, with RaceActive Chassis Control (maybe McLaren led us down a path…) dialled back to fast road settings, new sensations, noises and quirks come to the fore.

The driving environment is fantastic. I adore the beautifully sculpted seats that are reclined just so, the simple Alcantaratrimmed steering wheel with two cool metallic buttons denoting DRS in blue on the left spoke and IPAS (Instant Power Assist System) in red on the right. Chances of using these buttons more than once? Probably zero. I wouldn’t change them for the world. More than anything the P1 feels – and I’m not sure McLaren would like this description – like a prototype. Pared-back, slightly flimsy in places and with the innate cool of a disguised development car fresh from some laps at the Ring. At night you get the added bonus of the cabin bursting blue and yellow as you play with throttle and gearbox for maximum flame-spitting.

Then there’s the noise. The P1 appears to have no sound deadening whatsoever and everything is competing for your attention. The tyres hum and whoosh, the engine has the familiar McLaren flat-plane-crank howl but it seems to rip more easily through the car, and the percussive twin-turbo set-up is so loud it seems to suck the air from your lungs. Grit and gravel flicks up and pings beneath you, the electric motor whines and then winds up when you crack the throttle at low revs as it attempts to fill the holes left by a turbocharged engine pushing 191bhp per litre. The whole car is alive. Turns out that going slowly in the P1 is a very fine thing to do.

The next day is a day to go a little faster. We’ll veer off the N-260 onto the C-28, which cuts through the Gerber Valley and climbs to Baqueira-Beret ski resort, then push on west.

The approach to the criss-crossing gondola lines is like all your mountain pass fantasies rolled into one and so much better than many of the famous climbs in the Alps.

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Mood and confidence are high so I do the unthinkable in a car of such monumental performance. I turn off the ESC. I’d love to talk you through the process but I can’t remember how you do it. Press and hold the Aero and Boost buttons mounted within the toggle switches for Powertrain and Chassis controls? Then release and confirm by repeating? Maybe.

Sounds about right. I think my brain has blocked it out as it’s the last hangover of the old ‘we know better’ McLaren philosophy that was all over the uptight, prescriptive and sometimes shoddy MP4-12C. Thankfully these days there’s a button marked ‘ESC’. Who knew that would be a good idea?

As the road starts to compress in on itself I know this could be another magic moment. I’ve become familiar with the brutal performance and so the shock, hopefully, won’t be as great and I can concentrate on the detail rather than becoming swept up by the experience and dumped out the other side like a great wave has crashed over me. The road is smooth enough to take the stiffest road-going setup (confusingly called Track) and the Powertrain toggle is dialled around to T. I’m on high alert. The P1 is not a car that allows you to decimate a road without serious concentration and an amount of mental recalibration. Let’s just say you arrive at corners travelling very, very quickly.

Despite the weight of the electric motor and batteries the P1 feels light and nimble. It actually gets upset quite easily on the fast approach to the hairpin section, front and rear struggling to deal with ridges as one and the wheels and body sometimes taking a breath or two where they’re not fully aligned. This momentary disconnect is exaggerated if going from throttle to brake as the whole car seems to float a length or so before the brakes pluck the body back onto its springs and start to shed speed. The Akebono brakes remain powerful and consistent, but the pedal is nowhere near as reassuring as, say, the Senna’s, and you feel the relatively narrow contact patch at the front is a limiting factor.

A fast left leads into a long 90-degree right. The P1’s steering is light and full of that delicious fingertip feel so intrinsic to the McLaren experience, but the rack feels slower than I thought it would and the front doesn’t respond quite as I’m expecting. A 720S would have dived to the apex but the P1 is gently pushing wide and the torque-fill of that electric motor is effective but not a complete solution. More throttle feeds the understeer and then, all of a sudden, the turbos hit boost and the brake-steer system frantically tries to equalise torque across the rear axle. Ultimately there’s simply too much of it and the Pirellis are soon spinning up and you’re sliding a car with 903bhp. Weirdly, the P1 never feels more secure and natural than when exiting a corner with some angle on and a trail of wispy smoke hanging behind it. The Senna has moved the game on for control and grip, but it doesn’t indulge with the P1’s good humour. Not even close.

The engine really is mighty once you start to use all of the available revs, and the seven-speed dual-clutch ’box, whilst not as savagely quick as the best Ferrari offering nor as

Top and left: The P1 may be renowned for its track capability and massive levels of downforce, but it is also a hugely capable car on the road, and you don’t even have to be travelling near its limits to enjoy it

THE P1 IS NOT A CAR T H AT A L L O W S Y O U T O D E C I M AT E A R O A D WITHOUT SERIOUS C O N C E N T R AT I O N

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magically precise as the latest PDK, is exciting to use because every upshift seems to grant access to even more power. It’s an illusion of course, but the fact the P1 pulls just as hard in fifth as in second or third leaves you in no doubt that you’re strapped into something with performance you could never grow fully used to exploiting. The chassis copes, just. And it needs plenty of help from the driver.

In quicker corners the P1’s balance shifts. Suddenly the front end is nailed down and it’s the rear struggling to keep up. More than once I roll into a turn at the top end of third and sense the tail starting to come around sharply. It’s a wicked surprise and sends a flush of heat down my neck. This thing is serious. I’d love to say I learnt to trust the car and use the pointiness to glide it through quicker turns with minimal steering lock, but I’d be lying. Sliding a P1 out of slower turns is one thing, letting it dance on the edge at high speed is something else and best left to the racetrack. Even so, it’s a trait that befits this car’s wild character. Remember when Formula 1 switched to the new hybrid era and for just a couple of races the drivers and teams couldn’t get to grips with the cars? The raw energy contained within was tangible, almost spilling over. That’s the P1. I can’t think of another supercar that feels quite so untamed.

It should be exhausting. And a P1 driven anywhere close to its potential for an extended period would be. Yet when we pass through Baqueira and head on to Vielha I’m not at all phased that we’ve still got over five hours of solid driving ahead before hitting Bilbao. Much of it is on the N-260 and the P1 can carry good speed without breaking sweat. I know there will be moments where I can’t resist feeling the crazed hit of acceleration, maybe scattered bursts of manic thrills when the road empties and it’s impossible to not lean on the chassis and test the brakes, but I also know that a P1 simply covering ground is a fascinating, charismatic monster of a car. It really is an enthralling thing to spend time with.

The P1 has its faults and its outright speed around a circuit or along a road through the Pyrenees has been eclipsed thanks to McLaren’s own rampant development cycle.

Others, too, have caught and surpassed the once untouchable hybrid hypercars. Maybe the new 992 Turbo, a car you could happily use every day, would defy the numbers and eat up the P1 thanks to its combination of devastating grip, linear power and predictable four-wheel-drive chassis. But we came to Spain to discover what’s left when a car defined as an ultimate is no longer the fastest, the strongest, the best. The answer is complex and nuanced, and in the case of the P1 it’s that you can focus on the car’s true character and discover what it can do away from the massive expectations created by unprecedented hype. In other words, it’s far from the end of the story. Of course, if you’re feeling lazy, there’s a simpler answer to what makes the P1 so special. Nine hundred and three. Seems to do the trick. L

MCLAREN P1 Engine V8, 3799cc, twin-turbo, plus 131kW electric motor Power 903bhp (combined) @ 7500rpm Torque 900Nm (combined) @ 4000rpm Weight 1490kg Power-to-weight 616bhp/ton 0-100kmph 2.8sec Top speed 350kmph (limited) Value today `10.7-13.1 crore (in the UK)

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T H E P 1 R E A L LY I S AN ENTHRALLING THING TO SPEND TIME WITH

S P EC I A L F EAT U R E : H Y U N DA I ’ S DY N A M I C CA RS

WO R D S b y S U V R AT KO T H A R I P H O T O G R A P H Y b y RO H I T G M A N E

ROUSING PERFORMERS

The fun-to-drive factor can only be valid if cars offer great dynamics and Hyundai’s transformational journey on this front is something that needs a telling

HE INDIAN CAR BUYING demographic is vastly different compared to global markets. For the longest time, fuel economy and value for money have been two dominant factors influencing car buying decisions. Cars with higher fuel economy have historically drawn a mass market appeal, and offering more bang for the buck has always been a criteria for carmakers. While these two factors still remain important, car buyersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; tastes have evolved over the years.

Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s now a growing community of enthusiasts and petrolheads out there.

This urban audience craves more than just practicality in a car. They prefer cars that trigger emotions over ones that are simply utilitarian. Cars that are engaging to drive on open roads and fun to throw around corners. For them, driving dynamics and performance are key factors. And Hyundai has promptly risen to the occasion, polishing the dynamics of its cars and readying them for this new wave of enthusiasts.

To address this enthusiast audience, Hyundai has already introduced its 1-litre and 1.4-litre T-GDI engines in India. These new turbocharged, direct injection engines optimise fuel economy and performance, proving that bigger isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t necessarily better if you are aiming for better performance. We have reviewed these engines and we know that they do deliver the

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AN URBAN AU DIE N CE PREFERS C A R S T H AT TRIGGER EMOTIONS

thrills. But what’s worth appreciating even more is that Hyundai has harnessed this performance efficiently by progressively improving the ride and handling of its cars. The new Grand i10 Nios is a significant stepup on the dynamics front and the trend continues as you move up the order in Hyundai’s portfolio. The new Verna packs better dynamics than the one it replaces while the new Creta feels far more tied down at high speeds. Even new SUVs like the Venue have nailed this formula. So let’s delve deeper, using excerpts from our reviews and comparison tests from the recent past, to understand how the dynamics of Hyundai cars have vastly improved.

Grand i10 Nios The Grand i10 Nios was launched as a replacement to the aging Grand i10, and it is the segment benchmark for features, quality and space. Hyundai has worked hard on the suspension and chassis as well, to make it a better handling car. An excerpt from Ed Sirish Chandran’s first drive review says, “The Grand i10 Nios is now more polished on the highway and doesn’t get thrown around by crosswinds or even bumps. There is a touch of firmness which is evident in the city where you

Above: Added safety net for the Venue with ESC. Below: Hyundai cars remain planted on all kinds of terrain

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can feel small ruts and dips — it doesn’t crash into them uncomfortably, but you can feel it — but that tightness in the suspension ensures it doesn’t wallow or gets tossed around on the highway.”

Earlier, hatchbacks were purely budget cars with a utilitarian appeal. Now, enthusiasts look forward to owning hatchbacks for thrills and that's why Hyundai even offers the Grand i10 Nios with a 1-litre turbopetrol engine that makes 98bhp and 172Nm of torque.

To match this performance, Hyundai has tuned its suspension for improved dynamics. The chassis too is stiffer and stronger thanks to the generous use of Advanced High Strength Steel (AHSS). It is superbly planted at triple-digit speeds on the highway and is equally confidence-inspiring around the twisties. It won our comparison test against the Maruti Suzuki Swift with its improved ride and handling playing a significant role in making it the winner.

Venue The Venue enters a segment Hyundai were not present in before — the Grand i10 Nios, Verna and Creta are all successors to older generation cars. And that shows in the dynamic polish of the Venue. We drove the Venue in the hills of Guwahati and it tackled bad roads and twisties brilliantly. Commenting on the Venue’s excellent ride and handling set up, the Ed wrote in his first drive review, “The steering on the Venue is one of the nicest Hyundai has done, it is not overly light nor is it completely devoid of feel. Next you notice the ride and how comfortably the Hyundai Venue tackles the indifferent roads in this part of the country. It also sports enthusiastic road manners, going around corners at a fair clip with body control well in check. There is a bit of body roll to go with the comfort tuned into the suspension but for a compact SUV, the body control is surprisingly tight and controlled.”

THE VENUE GOES AROUND CORNERS AT A F A I R C L I P K E E PI N G B O DY R O L L IN CHECK

That perfectly explains what makes the Venue so great dynamically. It is a compact SUV that handles like a hatchback! Tall cars naturally tend to wallow around corners, but the Venue’s chassis is so well engineered that it breaks the norm of SUVs failing in the handling department. It feels composed around bends and on the highway, at triple-digit speeds, it feels stable. Even over broken tarmac, the pitch and roll is well contained. The Venue diesel is a part of evo India’s long-term fleet and the petrolheads from our team are always eager to take it out for a spin.

Verna The Hyundai Verna has been around since 2006 and is a name familiar to sedan lovers in the country. Over the years Hyundai has improved the Verna and the sedan is now properly polished. The most important of all upgrades is the new Verna’s revised suspension

set up that makes it even more planted. We got behind its wheel recently, and the Ed praised it in his review, quoting, “You immediately notice the upgrades to the suspension, which has an even more European feel to it in the firmness of the damping and the more precise rebound. The ride isn’t too soft or squishy with the nose staying planted and not bouncing about on undulating roads. Floaty suspension is a thing of the past as far as Hyundai is concerned.”

Over India’s poor roads, the Verna’s pliant suspension strikes a great balance between a comfortable and a sporty ride. It is composed while ironing out bad patches and you can exploit its performance thanks to its solid and robust underpinnings. Throw it into corners and the front end bites well and turns in sharply. Low slung and sporty sedans like the Verna will always handle better than SUVs, and the Verna Turbo is one of the best-handling Hyundai cars on sale currently.

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Below: Paddle shifters in the Verna Turbo (bottom) make it even more engaging to drive.

Facing page, bottom: The Creta’s ride and handling is confidence-inspiring

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Creta Over 4.85 lakh units of the Creta have been sold since it was first launched. The older generation Creta was a best-seller and the new Creta is building on the success of its predecessor. Significant upgrades in the Creta include its heavily revised suspension set up. It now feels more planted and stable on our roads. In fact, the Ed thinks that the ride of the new Creta is now very similar to European SUVs. He drove the new Creta just days before the lockdown began and he said, “The ride quality has this European setup to it where you do feel small ripples in the road but as you pick up speed it stays unaffected by bumps on the road, doesn’t wallow or float, the nose doesn’t dive and you can drive it hard and fast over smooth and not-so-smooth roads.”

The popularity of SUVs is justified by the omnipresence of poor roads in our country. SUVs provide peace of mind and certain levels of assurance while tackling bad roads and broken paths. The Creta provides tremendous confidence on this front. Recently, we pitted the new Creta against its rivals and even SUVs half a segment above and it emerged as the winner. Its planted and

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RIDE AND HANDLING OF THE NEW C R E TA I S SIMILAR TO EUROPEAN SUVS

stable nature makes it tackle road undulations with poise and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s absolutely unaffected by little bumps that would otherwise unsettle its softly sprung predecessor.

It instils the feeling of an SUV that is comfortable and composed. The well-weighted steering and the sophistication of the ride quality make it one of the best SUVs that you can buy for under `20 lakh and with the competition in that segment, that's saying something.

The improvements on the ride and handling front are so significant that one can describe this transition as a proper transformation, one that has redefined Hyundaiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s brand image as a provider of fun-to-drive

and enthusiast-friendly cars at affordable price tags, without compromising on other key parameters like comfort, space, features and fuel economy. India is Hyundaiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest overseas production base and that has made the brand monitor and cater to the evolving local needs. And the result is in front of your eyes. Light steerings and soft suspensions are a thing of the past and what you have now are cars that can put a smile on your face. Modern Hyundai cars are some of the most well-rounded and well-packaged offerings in India and are fine examples of accessible performance thanks to their improved dynamics. L

A L FA R O M EO & L A N C I A I N M OTO RS P O RT

TROPHY

HUNTERS Alfa Romeo and Lancia were both virtually unstoppable in their motorsport heydays, but which cars best define these marques in motorsport?

Henry Catchpole pins down his personal favourites

Above: Designed in 1938, the Tipo 158 ‘Alfetta’ won 11 out of 11 races in 1950, the year of the F1 world champion. Left: Tipo 33/2 Daytona took the first three spots in the 2-litre category of the namesake event in 1968, also breaking Porsche’s run at the Targa Florio that year

A L FA R O M EO & L A N C I A I N M OTO RS P O RT

LFA ROMEO HAS RACING at its heart. Look at the company’s badge between 1925 and 1975 and you will see a wreath round the outside, which was added after the marque won the first ever Automobile World Championship. Of course, after a hiatus of over 30 years, the Alfa badge is now back in Formula 1. However, its appearance in the paddock is via a sponsorship deal with the Swiss team formerly known as Sauber rather than through a proper factory tilt at a title. It’s better than nothing, but it seems a shame that the latest generation of F1 fan may not realise just how very important Alfa is in the history of motorsport…

Asked to pick my three favourite Alfa race cars from down the years, I couldn’t start anywhere other than the 1930s and the P3. Vittorio Jano was the Gordon Murray or Adrian Newey of the day, except he was arguably even more successful. His second car for Alfa, the P3 (pictured on the previous spread) was the first ever genuine single-seat (monoposto) race car.

Amazingly light at around 700kg, it was powered by a supercharged straight-eight.

After a hugely successful first Grand Prix season with the P3 in 1932, the financially stricken factory team pulled out of the 1933 season, leaving a certain Enzo Ferrari to run a satellite team of P3s. But it was the German Grand Prix in 1935 that cemented the legend of both the car and one Tazio Nuvolari. By ’35, the P3 was recognised as being outclassed by the newer Mercedes and Auto Unions. Nevertheless, the 42-yearold Nuvolari led early in the wet race at the Nürburgring.

He then fell back due to a bungled pit stop before racing back brilliantly through the field and gaining victory on the last lap ahead of no less than eight Silver Arrows – something that the Third Reich was less than happy about. It was known as ‘The Impossible Victory’.

Second on my list of favourites is the T33/3. This is not the sensuously curvaceous Tipo 33 from the mid’60s, but the later 3-litre V8 sports prototype from 1971. I think it’s a fantastically simple but beautiful example of the cars from that era. Small and chunky, with its bluff nose, and the single mirror sitting high on a spindly tripod, it looks wonderful to me. Especially on the rough and tumble roads of Sicily.

The T33 hadn’t actually been very successful and Porsche was in its pomp in the early ’70s with the 917 and the 908. In fact, the 908 had been so successful that Ferrari didn’t even turn up to the Targa Florio in ’71.

As such, local hero Nino Vaccarella went to Autodelta and paired up with Toine Hezemans in a T33/3. To the

delight of the crowd they won a famous ninth victory for Alfa at the Targa, beating Porsche for the first time in six years.

My final Alfa pick is a touring car. It had to be – the marque has had such success with tin-tops. I was tempted by a ’60s GTA, obviously, but I’ve gone with a car I remember watching avidly when I was growing up: the 155 BTCC racer from 1994. The Volvo 850 estates also arrived on the scene that season, but it was Gabriele Tarquini in his Alfa (seemingly often on two wheels) that dominated. Although not without controversy…

At the time, the rules said 2500 road cars were needed for homologation purposes. Alfa decided to exploit this and built 2500 special Silverstone editions of the 155.

These had an extendable rear wing (it wasn’t obvious because the various parts needed for the extension were in the boot) and extendable front splitter. Preseason, Alfa Corse tested its cars with both these aero Left: Gabriele Tarquini, leading, dominated the 1994 BTCC in the Alfa 155, although things didn’t always go to plan, as he found out at Knockhill that year.

Below: Fangio on his way to the 1951 world championship in the 159

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aids retracted, only unveiling them at the first race at Thruxton. They won at a canter. And they continued to do so for the next four races. Others protested, Alfa stormed out of the fifth round at Oulton Park, and the 155s ran the second-half of the season with the reduced aero set-up, but Alfa won both championships.

Picking a podium of Lancia rally cars ought to be easy. After all, there are really only four contenders to choose from. But deciding which of those four to leave out is somehow harder than it would be to choose just one winner. All are special, each one different.

Nevertheless, I’ve endured the sleepless nights, suffered the pangs of guilt and made peace with my decision, so here we go.

Standing in a forest and hearing the sound of an angry, naturally aspirated V6 coming towards you is, for me, the surest way to make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. And while a Metro 6R4’s V6 is tremendous, it is pipped for sheer follicle enchantment

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Above: The Stratos put Lancia firmly on the rallying map. Left: The 037 would also taste WRC success. Opposite page: The Delta HF in Group B (top) and Group A (below on the Safari rally) became Lancia’s most successful rally car ever

by the music that emanates from the 2.4-litre Dino V6 in the back of a Stratos HF. It is possibly the best-sounding competition car ever.

The little wedge of Bertone-styled madness was designed specifically to reinvigorate Lancia’s image by being successful in the World Rally Championship.

And successful it was, winning three manufacturers’ championships on the bounce from 1974 to 1976 and then a drivers’ title for Sandro Munari in 1977. In terms of look, I’d have to go with wide-tyred tarmac spec and full light pod. Alitalia livery is iconic, but I love the simpler red of Darniche’s car on the way to victory in Corsica in ’75.

Next up is Lancia’s first Group B offering, the 037, preferably with a Martini livery and in gravel spec. The story of how Lancia managed to beat the Quattro-driven might of Audi in 1982 has been well told many times before, and the fact that the 037 remains the last rearwheel-drive car to win the World Rally Championship certainly makes it a bit special. But even if it hadn’t won that year I would still love the 037.

I adore the low, long-wheelbase look of it. The minimal rear overhang with the simple but prominent rear wing is just gorgeous. The telephone-dial Speedline alloys juxtapose perfectly with the sharp lines of the bodywork, and in a sport which is so often associated with more upright shapes, the 037’s sleek silhouette

sets it apart. It looks almost too delicate to be a rally car and there is a sublime grace to the way it slides down a stage. Wonderful.

And now for the crunch – Delta S4 or Delta HF? Well, it’s the latter for me. I’ve always thought the S4 looks awkward, and it killed poor Henri and Sergio, so Group A beats Group B in this instance. The Delta HF is also Lancia’s most successful rally car by some margin, with a staggering 46 World Rally Championship victories across six seasons (’87-’92) and winning the manufacturers’ title for Lancia in each one.

Perhaps curiously then, I think the best looking is the Delta HF Integrale Evo, which Carlos Sainz drove, largely unsuccessfully, in 1993 for the Jolly Club team. For me it’s a case of more is more in terms of the aesthetics, with the deeper bumpers and wider arches complementing the boxy proportions, the flicked-up roof spoiler being the cherry on the cake.

And while it might seem sacrilege, I also think the Repsol livery that Sainz brought with him to the team in ’93 just looks fantastic. The red Martini livery that appeared only once (Sanremo in 1989, for the launch of the 16v Integrale) is a close second.

So there we are. Three very different rallying Lancias, spanning 20 years and with ten WRC manufacturers’ titles between them – more than any other brand has achieved before or since. L www.

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B O O S T WO R D S b y S I R I S H C H A N D R A N P H O T O G R A P H Y b y RO H I T G M A N E

I S S U E S If you want a turbocharged sedan, you now have options

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PTIONS! THAT’S WHAT YOU have. Up until now, if you wanted a turbo-petrol in the C-segment you had the Vento. That’s it. Nobody else believed in turbocharging, not even Skoda who plugged away with the 1.6 MPI in the Rapid. And then came BS6 norms and manufacturers whose eyeballs weren’t glued to their toes, invested. Put money into localising tech for future regulations and — crucial to readers of this magazine — satiate the appetite of the growing flock of enthusiasts demanding performance, joy and fun from their cars.

Let’s start with Hyundai because nobody have taken those big jumps in technology as the Koreans. First introduced in the Venue last year, the 1.0 GDI is the first direct-injection turbo-petrol engine to be made in India. Nope, I haven’t forgotten VW’s 1.2 TSI that has been around for ages — seven years to be precise — but that motor was never made here. Neither were Suzuki’s 1.0 Dualjet or Fiat’s 1.4 T-Jet both of which, in any case, have been discontinued. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to look at all those examples and smash out the usual excuses — Indians don’t pay for performance, Indians don’t pay for new technology, Indians only want fuel efficiency — but Hyundai didn’t.

And customers put their money where their mouths are.

43 per cent of Venues sold are with the turbo-petrol, and that engine, in different states of tune has gone into the i10 Nios, Aura and, now, the Verna.

To Skoda then, who are now in the driver’s seat of the VW Group in India. They were the first to introduce India to the turbo-petrol in the original Octavia RS and now they offer India’s most affordable turbo-petrol car in the Rider variant of the Rapid. And they’ve absolutely thrashed the suggestion that Indians don’t spend on powerful engines. Response to that Rider has been so overwhelming that dealers have stopped taking orders and Skoda has introduced a Rider Plus to cash in on the demand. What we have here is the Monte Carlo which has more equipment, a higher price tag, and that cracking motor. What we don’t have is a DSG. And, so, back to Hyundai. They’ve got a twin-clutch!

VW Group’s DSG is synonymous with twin-clutch automatics but they’ve found it to be too expensive for Facing page: Verna Turbo gets the blacked-out grille and all-black interiors with contrast red stitching and accents; body roll well contained along with good cornering grip. Above: GDI engine is locally assembled

HYUNDAI’S 1.0 GDI IS THE FIRST D I R E C T- I N J E C T I O N TURBO-PETROL ENGINE TO BE MADE IN INDIA the (alleged) tight-fisted Indian buyer and so this new 1.0 TSI will, eventually, get a regular 6-speed torque converter. Hyundai, though, have a whole laundry list of options for the Verna. For starters they’ve got a diesel, upgraded to BS6, that has the option of an automatic. Then there’s a new naturally aspirated 1.5 petrol with the option of a CVT. And finally there’s the version we have here, the 1.0 GDI with the DCT twinclutch automatic, complete with steering wheel paddles and unique styling tweaks. Talk about going the whole nine yards! Skoda offers one engine and (for now) one transmission on the Rapid. That’s it.

NOW, NEITHER THE RAPID NOR THE VERNA are all-new but the latter has been extensively spruced up. The platform, wheelbase, interior packaging all remain the same but the nose has been extensively reworked and, on the Turbo, gets a blacked-out grille that looks a damn sight better than the blingy bronzeeffect on the other variants. The Turbo also gets twin exhaust tips to differentiate it and, of course, all the top end variants get LED lighting. The Turbo gets all-black interiors that contrasts very nicely with the red stitching and a larger 8-inch infotainment screen that, typically for Hyundai, has a simple, fuss-free user interface.

There’s also the Blue Link connected car features including remote start, concierge, SOS, geo-fencing and more. Plus you get a sunroof, cooled front seats, paddle shifters for the DCT, wireless charger (not wide enough for a Max-sized phone) and ESP. In comparison the Rapid gets, erm, nothing. The dash is the ten-year-old Polo’s with an admittedly lovely flatbottom steering wheel. The seats aren’t as comfortable or supportive as the Verna’s. The back seats of both are tight but the Verna’s has an ever so slight edge. And the only thing worth mentioning is the infotainment that is www.

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HYUNDAI VERNA TURBO Engine 998cc, 3-cyl, direct-injection, turbo-petrol Transmission 7-speed DCT Power 118.3bhp @ 6000rpm Torque 172Nm @ 1500-4000rpm Weight 1048kg 0-100kmph 14.1s Top speed NA Price `13.99 lakh (ex-showroom, India)

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SKODA RAPID TSI MONTE CARLO Engine 999cc, 3-cyl, direct-injection, turbo-petrol Transmission 6-speed manual Power 108.5bhp @ 5000-5500rpm Torque 175Nm @ 1750-4000rpm Weight 1138kg 0-100kmph 10.2s Top speed NA Price `11.79 lakh (ex-showroom, India)

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an 8-inch Android tablet that just doesn’t work properly.

I want to plug in my iPhone and use CarPlay. That’s it.

I don’t want to reach across the passenger’s lap to plug the cable into the USB in the glove box, realise there’s no CarPlay, then figure out the Android interface to hook up via WiFi, then use an app to mirror the screen, and after half an hour revert to old-school Bluetooth in absolute frustration. On the plus side it has YouTube and Netflix, which would have been nice if it had an in-built SIM card, but I only hope none of this works when the car is on the move because that’d be a crazy distraction for the driver.

Skoda sticks with old-school analogue dials for the speedo and tacho which is far better than the digital cockpit of the Verna. You insert a key into the Rapid’s ignition and turn the key which I have absolutely no problem with. There’s no ESP to switch off to light up the front tyres. And those front tyres, they light up!

There’s no other way of saying this, the TSI is better than the GDI. On paper the Verna makes 10bhp more but on the road the Rapid is massively quicker. There’s a proper shove in the back when you floor it, it does 100kmph in just over 10 seconds, the engine revs with enthusiasm and it feels fast. There’s more low and midrange grunt and it is allied to a chassis that is great fun to throw around. There is body roll but there’s also more eagerness from the chassis and more connection through the steering wheel. If you’re buying a turbopetrol for thrills read no further, you’ve found your car.

Hyundai’s turbo-petrol is quieter, has less of the threecylinder thrum and has far less turbo lag. Which is great except it is the kick when the turbo spools up that adds to the sensation of performance; the engine note when revved makes it sound powerful. These things give the car its enthusiast character but Hyundai, in their quest for refinement, have engineered it all away and that doesn’t make the Verna Turbo feel lively and energetic.

The DCT, for obvious longevity and reliability reasons,

doesn’t allow high-revs standing starts, launching gently and only taking off once revs get above 2500rpm. By that time the Rapid is gone. 0-100kmph is four seconds slower.

The chassis though, it is all nicely tightened up. There’s no float or wallow. The cornering grip is as good with less body roll. The ride quality is better despite firmer dampers than the Rapid, which means you can go over bad roads faster and the nose doesn’t scrape when speed breakers catch you unawares. It is actually very good to drive (Yes! We are talking of a Hyundai here!) but what needs sorting out is the steering — it is too light and that doesn’t give you the sense of confidence or the planted stance of the Rapid.

To conclude then, if you want a fun to drive turbopetrol-sedan, the Rapid is the pick of the two with the nicest motor mated to a more involving chassis. But in every other respect the Verna is the better car. L

Left: 1.0 TSI is a fantastic engine!

Below: All too familiar cabin, now with an Android tablet for the infotainment.

Bottom: Noticeable body roll but the most engaging chassis

I F YO U WA N T A F U N TO DRIVE TURBO PETROL-SE DAN THE RAPID IS THE PICK OF THE T WO www.

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WO R D S b y S I R I S H C H A N D R A N | P H O T O G R A P H Y b y RO H I T G M A N E

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Honda sticks with the tried and tested naturally aspirated i-VTEC on the City while VW downsizes to the turbocharged TSI. Who is on the right track?

T S I

THIS IS A RATHER STRAIGHT FORWARD comparison test, and the big question we are asking is this: can the naturally aspirated petrol hold its own in this day and age of prolific turbocharging?

Flying the NA flag is the Honda City, in its fifthgeneration avatar. This new City is evolutionary, not revolutionary, and it sticks with what Honda knows best. Excellent space, a whole load of features, great comfort, and the beauty that is the i-VTEC engine. It’s not a straight carry-forward though. To meet new BS6 emission norms, the 1.5-litre motor gets the twin-cam head which also bumps up power… by two horses. No matter, on paper the City still has the legs on its rivals.

10bhp more than the Vento in a lighter package is your verdict right there.

Except, turbocharged engines have another trick up their sleeve: torque. With 145Nm, the City is 30Nm down on the new Vento TSI. Plus the Vento makes peak torque at 1750rpm while the City peaks at 4600rpm, 300rpm higher than before. Evenly matched then are these two!

BEFORE WE JUMP TO THE PERFORMANCE figures, let’s talk about the cars themselves. Now even though the City has the same wheelbase, the interiors

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have been re-jigged to deliver even more space. In fact Honda draped one of their lady engineers in a sari and set themselves the target of her being able to sit at the back comfortably cross-legged (because their research revealed that’s how sari-clad Indian ladies prefer to sit). For obvious reasons I cannot deliver a sari verdict but I can confirm the City is even more spacious and comfortable at the back than before. And because there’s more shoulder room there’s space for big, wide, comfortable and supportive seats up front.

On space then, the City has the Vento easily bested.

We are talking about a ten-year-old car here, the Vento, and there’s no way its cabin can match up to a new car. The City’s dash looks better. There are plenty of (useful) cubby holes. A digital screen replaces the dials and in addition to the usual info also has a g-force meter. There’s an 8-inch touchscreen (weirdly tilted ever so slightly towards the passenger) along with a whole bunch of connected car features and even Alexa integration so you can tell the car to start itself or load your favourite play list. And in addition to the six airbags you get ESP, hill hold assist and a 5-star Asian NCAP crash test rating. If these things are important to you (safety ratings definitely should be!), the City is the clear winner. It is also the easier car to

H O N DA C I T Y I -V T EC v V W V E N TO TS I

drive, lighter on the fingers, and with better all-round visibility. And you don’t need me to tell you that the City is a newer and more attractive looking car as well.

As for how it drives, here’s where Honda's engineers have put in the work. Remember how the City felt fragile and brittle on poor roads? The revised dampers not only have better bump absorption but it is considerably more refined and doesn’t audibly thump and thud into bumps. You can go faster over speed breakers than in the Vento and you don’t have to worry about it scraping its nose as it descends unmarked speed breakers that surprise you with frustrating regularity. Best of all, the City doesn’t feel light. From the way the doors shut, to the way the suspension deals with broken patches, the City has more heft delivering that sense of safety and confidence that we so love about the Vento.

At speed, the Vento still has the edge over the City, feeling more planted, stable, and impervious to bumps, crosswinds and the surprises that keep jumping at you. The City though has better low-speed ride and the Vento’s soft suspension means you have to be careful not to fly over speed breakers lest you graunch the nose. Where the Vento really makes its mark is round corners. The soft suspension means there’s plenty of body roll but the high torsional rigidity

Below: The City is also available with a CVT transmission and steering wheel mounted paddle shifters. Bottom: Fair bit of body roll and narrower tyres mean earlier onset of understeer. ESP is standard and the City has a full 5-star Asian NCAP crash test rating

C I T Y ’ S R E V I S E D D A M P E R S H AV E B E T T E R B U M P ABSORPTION AND ARE MORE REFINED WITHOUT ANY AU DIB LE TH U M PS AN D B U M PS

H O N DA C I T Y I -V T EC v V W V E N TO TS I

HIGH TORSIONAL RIGIDITY MEANS P L E N T Y O F G R I P, C O N F I D E N C E A N D D R I V E R I N V O LV E M E N T

HONDA CITY I-VTEC Engine In-line 4-cyl, 1498cc, petrol Transmission 6-speed manual Power 119bhp @ 6600rpm Torque 145Nm @ 4300rpm Weight 1153kg Power-to-weight 103.2bhp/ ton 0-100kmph 11.1sec Top speed NA Price `13.14 lakh (ex-showroom)

VOLKSWAGEN VENTO TSI Engine In-line 3-cyl, 999cc, turbo-petrol Transmission 6-speed manual Power 108.5bhp @ 5000-5500rpm Torque 175Nm @ 1750-4000rpm Weight 1138kg Power-to-weight 95.3bhp/ ton 0-100kmph 10.2sec Top speed NA Price `11.99 lakh (ex-showroom)

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of the chassis means there’s plenty of grip, confidence and driver involvement when attacking corners. The added steering weight (you might grumble about it while doing three-point turns) adds to that connection with the Vento making it more fun to drive. The City runs slightly narrower tyres and, allied to the chassis setup, has earlier onset of understeer.

Let’s drag To the engines then. In terms of refinement the 4-cylinder i-VTEC is on another planet. At idle, even at a steady cruise, it is noiseless. And when you floor the throttle, the engine spins up enthusiastically, all the way to 7000rpm, accompanied by a lovely engine note that feels familiarly reassuring — reminding you of the sweet-revving Japanese engines enthusiasts grew up with. The gearbox too is light, slick and sweet shifting. It feels, so, brimming with energy.

The Vento’s TSI, though, is explosive. Where you have to work the i-VTEC and rev the life out of it, the TSI dumps out max torque as soon as you launch it.

We did a video, drag racing the two side-by-side and it appears that the City launched a fraction later but the truth is the Vento jumps off the line aided by a whole load more torque and lower gearing. At launch itself it pulls a car length ahead of the City and that advantage holds through for the full run. The Vento takes 10.2 seconds for the 0-100kmph run while the City takes 11.1 seconds.

The Vento is not only faster in a straight line but is faster in the real world. Keep it above 2000rpm and there’s an instant surge of torque. Driving it fast

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is effortless. The torque means you stick it in sixth gear and never have to downshift, even to overtake.

You have to be in the mood to work the City’s engine, scream it, row through the gearbox whereas with the TSI, everything is on tap, all the time. You drive it fast without even trying. And, this surprised me, the TSI’s claimed fuel efficiency is just 0.6 per cent down on the i-VTEC, though to be clear you have to drive the TSI really carefully to get it to sip, and not gulp, petrol.

To conclude then, the City is the better car. Newer, better-equipped, more spacious, more comfortable, and with more engine and transmission options. But the answer to the question we asked at the start is clear — the turbocharged engine scores over natural aspiration. L

Top: Vento is definitely more fun to drive with more power, a more involving chassis and an eagerness to be flung around. Below: Cabin is dated but the flat-bottom steering wheel is a tactile delight

SE NEW CT ION

DUSCBIKAESTGOIâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S

SPORT -TO-HEAD HEAD

PLUS

RED HOT

UPFRONT: BMW S 1000 XR & BENELLI IMPERIALE RIDDEN: HERO XTREME 160R, BAJAJ DOMINAR 250 & TVS APACHE RR 310

NEW S & REVIE WS PLANET FAST BIKES – NEW META L,

WORDS: ABHISHEK WAIRAGADE

X-ROADER

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MW Motorrad’s flagship road-biased sports tourer has finally made it to India! Yes, the second-gen S 1000 XR is here in just one fully-loaded variant, priced at `20.9 lakh (ex-showroom). The Pro variant comes with everything that you’d expect from a BMW and goes up against the Ducati Multistrada 1260 S which costs `19.6 lakh (ex-showroom) though Ducati is yet to launch its BS6 range in India.

The XR is the road-friendly iteration of the much-revered S 1000 RR and follows BMW’s new design language recently seen on the F 900 XR. Keeping in mind its touring intentions, the 1000 XR gets a comfortable rider’s triangle and a tall seat at 840mm.

The new S 1000 XR is powered by a 999cc, inline-four, liquid-cooled motor that develops 163bhp at 11,000rpm and 114Nm at 9250rpm. The claimed 0-100kph time is 3.3sec and top speed is in excess of 200kph.

The engine is based on the new S 1000 RR’s unit but makes do without the ShiftCam tech. BMW has also revised the manifolds and used special cam profiles for a meatier mid-range. The gearing has been altered to suit the touring application of the XR. The fourth, fifth and sixth gears are tall; again for touring purposes.

The electronics package includes four riding modes — Rain, Road, Dynamic and a fully customisable Dynamic Pro mode.

There’s DTC and hill start assist that comes as standard as well. The chassis has been completely reworked and the S 1000 RR-based frame itself is lighter by 2.1kg. The weight has gone down by a massive 10kg as compared to the first-gen model and you get a semi-active, electronically adjustable suspension as well. Although unlike the F 900 XR, BMW has priced the S 1000 XR quite steeply.

LONELY ROAD

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enelli has launched its first BS6 motorcycle, the updated Imperiale 400.

Initially the Imperiale was launched at `1.69 lakh but the price was soon revised to `1.79 lakh owing to the high demand. And now the price of the BS6 variant has gone up even more, costing `1.99 lakh, ex-showroom.

Benelli justifies the hike in prices due to the depreciation of the rupee and of course, the cost of BS6 machinery as well.

The new Imperiale 400 is powered by the same 374cc, single-cylinder, fuel-injected engine. Power and torque figures remain the same at 21bhp and 29Nm, however peak output comes in at a different rev range.

Bookings are now open for `6000.

LI’L KILLER

E

Now this is a proper Bavarian mile-muncher!

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nthusiasts were awestruck by the Kawasaki Ninja ZX 25R at the 2019 Tokyo Motor Show and have been delirious since its gone on sale in Indonesia. But why?

Well, while most 250s pack a single-cylinder or parallel-twin motor, the ZX-25R gets an in-line four (yes!), making 49bhp (51bhp with ram-air) and 22.9Nm. Available in two variants, the standard model gets dual-channel ABS and a slipper clutch, while the SE boasts of traction control, riding modes and a bi-directional quickshifter. Braking duties are handled by a 310mm disc and four-pot caliper up front, with a 220mm disc and single-piston caliper at the rear. The damper: The standard model is priced at about `5 lakh (before taxes), while the SE retails at about `5.9 lakh!

FEATURE

THE PERFECT WORDS: FRO DO

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IMAGES: JAM IE MORRIS

PANIGALE? Are size and horse power really all th at crucial when it to conquering the comes roads? Some wou ld argue that is th but we wanted to e case, know for sure... so we pitched Ducati pimped V4S again 's st its new little bro ther, the V2

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DUCATI V4

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V2

W

hen Ducati unveiled their all-new Panigale way back in 2011, it’s fair to say that every man and his dog got excited; not only did it look the absolute the absolute bees knees, but it came with some serious spec to back it up – not to mention a seriously exhilarating personality thrown in for good measure. And the thing is, it’s always been an animal on track, but whether the Italians stuffed the minimal chassis with their V-twin or V4 powerplants it’s not always been the easiest, nor most pleasant machine to ride on the road. But then again, fast forward nigh on 10 years, and the Panigale has been through a raft of improvements, making it sexier, smarter and now for 2020, softer and easier to ride. In last year’s Ultimate Sports Bike test, the big Panigale really did suffer on the roads, but after spanking the new one on circuit at the launch earlier this year, it really did feel like a much calmer animal.

But then again, it needs to be, as the updated V4 and V4S aren’t the only new kids on the block, with Ducati ditching their entry-level (per se) 959 in favour of the updated V2. See, although the little Pani can quite easily be seen as the middleweight, or the runt of the litter in Ducati’s sporting line-up, it’s actually anything but.

Think about it this way, it packs more power than the original 999R, and very nearly the same amount of torque… and that was a world championship winning superbike just 15 years ago. It’s no slouch then, and for this year Ducati have really ramped it up a notch; it’s been given some seriously saucy cosmetic surgery, a chunk of extra beef in the engine and somehow, the V2

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has even managed to nick the top-spec, and utterly spellbindingly good electronics package from the range-topping V4R. Couple that with a softer seat and suspension setup, and it sounds like a seriously sensual recipe for a decent road bike.

So how would the two measure up together? As far as specs go, there’s a whopping 20Nm of difference where torque is concerned and a monumental 59 horsepower difference, which is massive when they weigh about the same-ish. But the biggest gulf? Well, there’s also an absolutely gigantic difference on price tag –the BS4 V4 S costs `26.5 lakh and the BS6compliant V2 is expected to launch at around `16 lakh.

So the question is, is the V4S really worth an extra `10 lakhs? Or is the more modest V2 enough for the job?

Well we wrapped up and racked up some serious road mileage in typically grim Blighty weather before self-isolation to find out…

With the temperature sitting just a notch above freezing, the roads caked in mud and the rain pissing down every time the clouds looked to be parting, it wasn’t exactly the ideal climate to be spanking two incredibly saucy sports bikes. But then again, that was the point in this test; we know these bikes are great on track, but we wanted to give ’em a pasting in the real world as well.

And to be honest, even with no sun glaring down,

the duo of Panigales looked absolutely incredible from a distance; now the V2’s been equipped with a singlesided swinger and sharper bodywork, you could be fooled into thinking they were twins – if those wings weren’t sticking out the side of the V4, anyway. It’s only on closer inspection that the little differences make themselves known. The V4S actually looks a bit chunkier, and those monstrous wings are impossible not to notice and almost impossible to avoid… I’m not sure I’d want to be walking around my garage with those puppies sticking out. Now I’m going to let you in on a little secret for full disclosure; I’ve actually spanked a load of my own cash on a V2 already this year, to turn into a race bike for the Ducati Tri-Options Cup. This meant, although I’d had a few sessions at Jerez last year, I opted for the baby Panigale first – you know, short of a week’s testing in Spain it made sense to get some mileage in before the start of the season, whenever that may be. Plus, after seeing how well behaved the V2 was on track, I was really excited to see if it could hack the local roads just as well.

I know it’s expected to be a whopping `16 lakh, but I’ve got to say, little details like having the ‘V2’ logo etched into the seat make it really look the part, and the baby Panigale did feel both special and premium when I lost the warmth of the van and hopped on. Like with most modern Ducs, the cockpit really is a nice place to

The V2 made a whole lot of sense on track...

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DUCATI V4

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V2

He needs more than wings, if you're asking us

PANIGALE V2: WHAT WE SAID ON TRACK: “From its track-spanking tekkers to its devilish attention to detail, the V2 ticks all the boxes with way more zest than any recent middleweight I’ve had the chance to thrash. It handled like a dream, had enough go to keep things exciting, but best of all, was the easiest Ducati to ride, and ride fast, I’ve ever had the pleasure of abusing. I used to ride an 899 in the Ducati Tri-Options Cup, and I spent three seasons trying to chase the feeling I got from spanking the bog-stock V2. So, is it the ultimate middleweight? Well, now it’s faster, comfier and damn right sexier, I’d have to say so. Yeah, it gets a bit hot, and it’s got a serious price tag on it, but if you think of it as a serious alternative to the V4, it doesn’t seem so silly. I’m not sure about you lot, but I’ve stuck it on my Christmas list already…”

be; the dash is actually easy to use, the buttons to toggle modes are where they should be, and even little details like the placement of the indicators just feel right from the get-go. Alas, the same can’t be said for the sidestand, which is a real pain in the ass to flick up or down. After some serious fumbling, and a few other ‘F’ words thrown in for good measure, it was ready to go, and with that gorgeously sounding V-twin fired up, it didn’t take long for me to have a smile back on my face.

And to be honest, chucking it into Street mode, the smile stayed for longer than I thought. See, not only was the clutch incredibly soft and responsive, but below 40kmph the V2 didn’t really feel like a Ducati – it was much smoother, softer and, shock, horror – it was actually fuelled rather nicely at the bottom end. Who’d have thought? Even the updated ride-by-wire system worked an absolute charm at pootling speeds, and having a ’shifter and ’blipper that works not just when it’s flat out really did help to save the day as well. See, there wasn’t a heated grip in sight so with my hands absolutely frozen it didn’t take long for me to want to avoid touching the clutch at all costs.

But then again, a lack of heated grips was forgotten as we soon managed to get a few miles under our belts.

I think the first thing that got me was how comfortable the little Duc was; although it’s got a sporty stance, the riding position didn’t feel too cramped – in fact, it felt quite nice and spacious, which is good if you’ve got some gangly legs, but even for my little ones I felt

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incredibly cushy. One thing I did find as well, was that even in the freezing weather the V2 did run quite hot, which although was a godsend in warming my gonads then, will be a pain in the ass when the sun properly comes out. Ducati did say they’ve improved the cooling with new fairings, but not by enough, it would seem – mind you, thanks to the bigger front cowling, there was even a surprising amount of wind (and therefore rain) protection as well. As far as the ride goes, through slow speed stuff another surprise was the suspension, and just how forgiving the chassis and pogo combo was, actually creating a really nice ride and offering loads of feel on the road below – not to mention the incredible electronics, which did actually kick in a couple of times on the ABS side of things when very, very necessary.

I know I’ve said it before, but my God they’re good.

To be honest, the only niggle I could really find was the mirrors; they weren’t the most useless things I’d ever used, but they still do suffer with that cursed vibration that makes glancing behind harder than it should be – and with a big bad V4 behind me, I quite liked what I saw for a change… especially with some dry(ish) roads on the horizon.

See, although the V2 had performed admirably rolling through villages, crappy roads and dodgy conditions, the truth is most of these bikes will never be seeing

such a thing, so it seemed like the only honourable thing to do was give it a good ol’ fashioned spanking, where the roads of Northamptonshire were surprisingly accommodating. With the mode quickly switched back into ‘Sport’, it was time to have a little play, and the baby Panigale proved it was anything but the runt of the litter.

Although its slow speed manners have been improved considerably, don’t for a second think that it’s been dumbed down at all; oh no, it is very much the opposite. The little added injection of power and torque have made a massive difference in its straight roadmunching capabilities; the V2 seemed to eat up the roads effortlessly, with an urgency that lended itself to feeling much more heavyweight than lightweight. Sure, it would’ve been nice to have had a bit more go at the top end and a few more revs to play with, but even so it was by no means slow, and the V4 hanging on to my number plate wasn’t just bumbling along stuck in first gear.

The same goes for the set up; the V2 really was an absolutely class act when it came to carving up the curves. I don’t know how the Italians have managed it, but even though they’ve softened it up it still performs incredibly under pressure; whisking from side to side is effortless, yet stabbing on those gloriously powerful

lovely What a t is a th e c ffi o

We've se e n w orse...

It look set up s a confusin a trea , but it wor g ks t

No budget cutting in the braking department

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DUCATI V4

Brembo brakes, or accelerating hard barely makes the Showa suspension sweat, it just keeps asking for more abuse. It does feel every bit of its price tag, closer on a likeliness to an exotic superbike, than your everyday budget middleweight.

Now, if only we had an exotic superbike to compare it with…

Ah yes, we do. After smashing a big old chunk of mileage (and a massive lunch), it was time to swap, and I was absolutely buzzing to jump on its bigger brother for the rest of the journey. Now the previous V4 was just about the softest range-topping Panigale to date, but it still did have a seriously feral nature; putting it bluntly, the thing just did not like being on a low speed leash, so I was keen to see how this one would cope. To be honest, once the wings have been dodged it really didn’t feel a million miles apart to the V2; yeah

VS

V2

the seat height might be a touch lower, but it has got a slightly chubbier engine, that did make itself known straight away between my legs. The dash and configuration is all very similar (with some more options though, may I add) but aside from that it’s fairly similar – until its sparked up that is, and the monstrous roar of the V4 takes over. I’m a real sucker for a V4 soundtrack, and as far as stock cans go, this may just be my favourite; it genuinely did feel like something special. Talking of special though, in typical Ducati fashion, the first hurdle was the sidestand; I thought the V2’s wasn’t great, but the V4’s sidestand is flimsier than natural yoghurt, and having miniature legs really makes the job a lot tougher than it should be.

After what felt like a billion attempts to get the thing up though, we were straight back into the twisties – and my God, the V4S knew how to move.

The V2 proved a real hoot on the roads

TECH DATA

DUCATI V2 ENGINE

955cc L-twin cylinder superquadro engine 100mm x 60.8mm 12.5:1 Fuel injection 155hp @ 10,750rpm 104Nm @ 9000rpm

Type: Bore x Stroke: Compression: Fuelling: Claimed power: Claimed torque: ELECTRONICS

RBW/Riding Modes: Traction Control: ABS: Quickshifter: Wheelie Control: Launch Control: Autoblipper:

Yes/Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes

CHASSIS

Frame: Monocoque Aluminium Front suspension: 43mm fully adjustable Showa Rear suspension: Front brakes:

Rear brakes:

BPF fork Fully adjustable Sachs unit Brembo Monobloc four piston calipers, with two 320mm semifloating discs Two piston caliper, with 245mm disc

DIMENSIONS

Wheelbase: Seat height: Wet weight: Fuel capacity:

1,436mm 840mm 176kg 17L

INFO

Price: From:

`16 lakh (estimated) www.ducati.com/in

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FEATURE

There’s no getting away from that engine; when I think back to that bike it’s the first thing that crosses my mind. Just everything about it just screams excitement, as it heads into the region of 13,000rpm and beyond. It’s one of the most furious thous that cash can buy as standard, with the sensational wheelie control forever fighting the front end lift, and the power just continuing with every touch of that sublimely smooth shifter. Everything about it feels race-y, and when pushed on it really does make sense. I know it sounds silly, but on big, open, dry, smooth roads everything about it just works; the chassis feels gorgeously composed like a well-set race bike, the brakes are more responsive than an armed ninja and the suspension, well, although still super stiff on one of its softest settings, gave an insane amount of feedback.

It just felt at home on big, open bends, eating up corners like the savage it is.

And when I say savage, I mean it. With that much power it didn’t take long to run from the open road into towns and cities, and although it worked wonders off the leash, when stuck behind traffic, pottering through town and hitting potholes, speed bumps and such like, it is still incredibly savage where feeling is concerned.

Yeah, Ducati may have softened it off a touch, but it’s still exceedingly stiff when it comes to riding at anything other than flat out, and although the V4S is electronically suspended, it doesn’t offer a monumental ride-changing softness, which is a real shame. Mind you, they would have to be seriously soft to cope with the state of some of the roads we were hitting.

It wasn’t just about its chassis and pogo tekkers through town though, as the same goes for the engine when rolling at a snail’s pace. It might sound silly, but the big Duc just didn’t seem to be happy when any form of slow speed riding made an appearance, with the V4 powerplant making itself very known that it didn’t want to be sitting anywhere under 20 where kmph was concerned. In all fairness, the throttle connection is a lot less aggressive than I expected and the clutch is pleasantly soft for a big shouty sportsbike, but due to the ruthless, revvy-nature of that engine, the bottom end still has a serious chug to it, which in turn makes walking pace riding a real pain in the ass. In fact, anything up to 40kmph seems to be out of the comfort zone, so if you were a bit cuckoo and fancied having one of these as a weekday commuter, I’d strongly advice against it.

But then again, I can’t imagine anyone would, and that’s the point of it; the V4S wasn’t designed in the secret labs in Bologna to be pottering around in first gear, nor was it designed to be a fuel-saving mile muncher – which is good, because it doesn’t half drink its petrol. It’s designed to be ragged to within an inch of its life, and if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be a range-topping weapon. It’s easy for us to say that it’s hard work through town, and that it’s pretty chuggy at low speed, but when that throttle’s opened and the V4 is firing you forward like it does? Well, it’s a price worth paying, and a feeling that not many standard road bikes on the market today could ever offer.

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DUCATI V4S: WHAT WE SAID ON TRACK: “What was once a burn-in-your-mouth, eye-watering lump of spice, has now become a slightly softer and milder concoction. Ducati have actually listened to some real feedback, and made the V4 easier to ride, and ride fast on track, but have still kept some serious amounts of excitement rolled in for good measure.

Everything that made the V4 good upon its release has been kept, while the minute changes and alterations have definitely made it a better package. On its own? It’s hard to fault. I just can’t wait to put it up against the cream of the crop this year...”

'Do you think I'm going to need a step ladder for that one?'

Who's been on the Red Bull?

DUCATI V4

CONCLUSION Although these bikes are Panigales, they are both incredibly different; and I’m not even talking about the opposing engine configurations, nor the monstrous gulfs in power and price. See, although the Panigale V2 worked surprisingly well on track, Ducati have somehow seemed to have designed it to be a real puppy on the roads as well; in fact, taking its fuelling, ride and comfort levels into account, I’d go as far as to say it’s the best sportsbike that’s come out of Bologna for pure road riding, and every bit a junior superbike in its own respect – think of it like that, rather than being a middleweight, and it makes a lot more sense, feeling pleasant whether poodling along in the wet, or going flat out under the sun. But then again, how many people that buy a new Panigale will want to ride in cold, damp, dreary days? Because I sure wouldn’t, and if I had a load of cash to

VS

V2

TECH DATA

spank, the V4S really would be close to the top of my list. On track, the thing is just out of this world in terms of excitement, and yeah, the power delivery and chassis have been softened for 2020, but I can safely say that it’s still a ruthless animal. It still wasn’t happy moping through town or sitting in traffic, but when the sun did break through a bit, the V4 really did prove its worth; it felt truly special and exciting, which is something that many other machines struggle to muster up. See, on a warm, summer’s day, I’d have to go for the bigger beast, with its insatiable thirst for openthrottle activities; even thinking about it as I write this is making me smile like a Cheshire cat. But at the end of the day, it’s still stiff, and it really is made for the track.

So for a bike that can do it all, and give you `10 lakh change? I’d have to say that the V2 has won this round…. Just.

DUCATI V4S ENGINE

1103cc Desmocedici Stradale V4 81mm x 53.5mm 12.5:1 Fuel injection 214hp @ 13,000rpm 124Nm @ 10,000rpm

Type: Bore x Stroke: Compression: Fuelling: Claimed power: Claimed torque: ELECTRONICS

RBW/Riding Modes: Traction Control: ABS: Quickshifter: Wheelie Control: Launch Control: Autoblipper:

Yes/Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

CHASSIS

Frame: Aluminium Alloy Front suspension: 43mm Öhlins NIX30 Rear suspension: Front brakes:

Rear brakes:

electronically adjusted forks Öhlins TTX36 electronically adjusted shock Brembo Monobloc Stylema M4.30 four piston calipers, with two 330mm semi-floating discs Two piston caliper, with 245mm disc

DIMENSIONS

Wheelbase: Seat height: Wet weight: Fuel capacity:

1469mm 835mm 174kg 16L

INFO

Price: From:

`26.5 lakh (ex-showroom) www.ducati.com/in

The new V4S... like the old one, but easier

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H

Looks great in profile

ero MotoCorp, back when it was Hero Honda, had the CBZ, a ‘cheater’ 156cc flagship with genuine sporty credentials. Its successor, the CBZ Xtreme, wasn’t as good, and with the Bajaj Pulsar’s growing popularity, Hero MotoCorp never regained lost ground. The 160cc bikes of today, however, are more like scaled-down versions of their larger siblings. But not the Xtreme 160R. First blood, scored.

Based on the Xtreme 1.R concept from the 2019 EICMA, the road-going model carries over the aggressive styling of the 140kg single-seat concept. This one, though, has a two-up seat and conventional forks, despite which it stays true to the concept’s kerb weight, another feather in its cap.

WORDS : SUDIPTO CHAUDHURY

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IMAGES: ROHIT MANE

XTREME-LY N-TICING Hero MotoCorp’s latest offering brings in a much-needed breath of fresh air. But does it have the go to match the show?

Highlights

BRAKING

7

STABILITY

8

AGILITY

9

Planted

Nimble is its middle name

PERFORMANCE 8 Adding lightness!

FUN

Surpisingly so!

The Xtreme 160R conceived at the brand’s CIT facility in Jaipur, looks ultra-modern without needless styling elements (*cough, Pulsar 160NS, cough*). The seamless tank shroud/side panel, the first thing you notice in profile, imparts a ‘premium’ feel, as do the all-LED headlights, taillights and indicators, a segment first. The smoked taillight visually merging with the integrated pillion grab handles may seem like an

A new face from Hero!

Refinement Comfortable ride Price Flickable 15bhp 14Nm Polite, but firm

In the flesh

9

HERO XTREME

The competition stays ahead...

TECH DATA

Hero Xtreme 160R ENGINE

Type:

Smooth criminal

Bore x Stroke: Compression: Fuelling: Claimed power: Claimed torque:

163cc, single cyl, air-cooled 57.3mm x 63.3mm 9.5:1 Fuel injection 15bhp @ 8500rpm 14Nm @ 6500rpm

ELECTRONICS

RBW/Riding Modes: No Traction Control: ABS: Quickshifter: Wheelie Control: Launch Control: Autoblipper:

No Yes No No No No

CHASSIS

Chunky tank adds flair

Frame: Rear suspension: Front brakes: Rear brakes:

A MUTED YET AUDIBLE EXHAUST NOTE REINFORCES THE BIKE’S SPORTY LEANINGS unnecessary detail, but is clearly visible even in full daylight.

Climbing onto the one-piece saddle, the 790mm seat height can accommodate riders of all statures, with the small bump ahead of the pillion seat the perfect bum-stop when tucked in at speed. The seat is cushioned well and along with the 7-step preload-adjustable monoshock will undoubtedly mean a comfortable ride. So let’s find out...

On the move Thumbing the starter leads to a muted yet audible exhaust note, reinforcing the Xtreme 160R’s sporty leanings. The reach to the ’bar seems perfect, as does the position of the footpegs, for a sporty yet comfortable rider’s triangle. The plastic shrouds covering the tank leave enough space for knee

Tubular diamond type

Front suspension: 37mm forks

Monoshock 276mm petal disc 220mm disc

DIMENSIONS

Wheelbase: Seat height: Kerb weight: Fuel capacity:

1327mm 790mm 139.5kg 12 litres

INFO

Price: From:

frame and competent MRF tyres aid overall flickability.

Also, remember our predictions on ride quality? This is where it all comes together.

We often see sporty handling compromised by a stiff ride, but the way the Xtreme 160R deals with undulations as well as midcorner bumps without undue wallowing, even when riding two-up, is commendable.

A testament to it was shutterbug Rohit never needing to tell me to slow down, even over bumpier sections of tarmac.

All you’re looking for?

The Xtreme 160R has a peppy (though not powerful per se) engine, darty handling, comfortable ride and competent brakes. The fact that it is so light adds tremendously to the appeal. That said, it isn’t perfect. The negatively-lit cluster not only shows basic readouts, but is also difficult to read under bright sunlight. The mirrors, too, don’t have too wide a field of vision, and the awkward placement of the side stand feeler right below the left footpeg will surely scuff your boots when engaged.

Overall, the Xtreme 160R departs from the stereotypical ‘safe’ preconception associated with Hero MotoCorp. At `99,950 for the front disc variant and `1.03 lakh for the dual disc variant (prices ex-showroom, Delhi), the Xtreme 160R makes for great value and just might be what the brand needs to make its mark in the hotly contested 160cc space. We can’t wait to put them head-to-head!

`1.05 lakh (ex-showroom) www.heromotocorp.com

A great allrounder

recesses, and won’t foul with even the tallest riders’ knees (endorsed by your six-foot-plus correspondent). The gearbox shifts easily, and despite all the low-speed riding, showed no instances of undue juddering or false neutrals.

Nevertheless, the Xtreme 160R is best ridden at mid-to-high speeds, where you won’t always need to downshift for overtaking manoeuvres within city limits.

Though 15bhp and 14Nm may not be class-leading, the low kerb weight, new

Verdict

8/10

The Hero Xtreme 160R has a wide breadth of ability from everyday riding to corner carving, and does so at a great price! + Price, ride and handling, tractability – Basic cluster

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TECH DATA

Bajaj Dominar 250 ENGINE

Type: Bore x Stroke: Compression: Fuelling: Claimed power: Claimed torque:

248.8cc, single cyl, liquid-cooled 72mm x 61.1mm NA Fuel injection 26.6bhp @ 8500rpm 23.5Nm @ 6500rpm

ELECTRONICS

RBW/Riding Modes: No Traction Control: ABS: Quickshifter: Wheelie Control: Launch Control: Autoblipper:

No Yes No No No No

CHASSIS

Perimeter Front suspension: Telescopic forks Rear suspension: Monshock Front brakes: 300mm single disc Rear brakes: 230mm single disc Frame:

DIMENSIONS

Wheelbase: Seat height: Wet weight: Fuel capacity:

1453mm 800mm 180kg 13 litres

INFO

`1.6 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi) www.bajajauto.com

Price: From:

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2

019 saw the arrival of Bajaj Dominar 400 UG where UG stood for upgrade, and what an upgrade it was! The Dominar was closer to the KTM 390 Duke in terms of performance but without compromising on practicality and of course, its ability to go ‘hyper riding’. We also pitted it against the 390 Duke and BMW G 310 R last year. So good was the Dominar’s price to performance ratio that we chose it over the other two, hands down. But unlike the Pulsar brand, Dominar didn’t really take off despite the

WORDS : ABHISHEK WAIRAGADE

updates. But now, there’s a new Dominar that’s expected to bring in the numbers on the sales charts. The Dominar 250 is here and as the name suggests, it picks up parts from the KTM 250 Duke. Plus it is lighter on your pocket by almost `40,000. But the question is, can you really go sports touring with a downsized motor?

The updates The engine is sourced from the 250 Duke but it is detuned slightly. The 248.8cc, liquid-cooled motor gets dual cams

|

IMAGES: ABHISHEK BENNY

TICKET TO TOURING Bajaj has plonked their KTM 250 Duke’s heart into the Dominar. Can it still go hyper-riding is the question Looks like its big brother

BAJAJ DOMINAR 250

Ergos are plenty comfortable

Highlights

Brilliant NVH Torquey motor Relaxed ergos Stable-mate 26.6bhp 23.5Nm

BRAKING

8

STABILITY

9

AGILITY

9

Does the job

Perimeter frame!

Very involving

PERFORMANCE 8 Adequate for the highway

FUN

8

Get Leh’d

THE THINNER RUBBER MAKES IT MORE AGILE THAN THE 400 8/10

Verdict

Warning lights on the secondary cluster

The engine is from the Duke 250

(thankfully) and churns out 27bhp at 8500rpm and 23.5Nm at 8500rpm – 3bhp and 0.5Nm less than the Duke. Other than the engine, Bajaj has also sourced the 300mm front disc from the 200 Duke’s bin.

The USDs are thinner and the cluster too has been redesigned. The secondary cluster mounted on the fuel tank only gets tell-tale lights and warning indicators. The primary cluster reads better but doesn’t have a gear position indicator. Other than that, the 250 gets thinner rubber at both ends: 100-section at the front and 130 at the rear.

Bajaj has replaced the Revz radials with Nylogrip Zappers which are not ideal for ‘sporty’ riding. The kerb weight has gone down by 7kg when compared to the Dominar 400 at 180kg, but the Dominar 250 is still the heaviest of the 250s.

Long legs?

Straight off the bat, the 250 feels smoother and a lot more refined than the Dominar 400. No surprises here as the 250 Duke is the smoothest of all the KTMs. It’s torquey and tractable without losing out on the top-end. In fact, the 250 is quite happy doing 100kmph in sixth at 6000rpm.

Overtaking on the highway is easy-peasy and the engine never feels strained.

The Dominar 250 offers great value and a rather sorted package that will be useable daily, while allowing you to head out for longer distances. + Price, refinement, handling, motor – Tyres, fit and finish, lack of gear position indicator

Low-down torque is better than on the 250 Duke and it lugs around at low speeds in a higher gear or two even.

The thinner rubber at the front end makes it more agile than the 400 and the weight isn’t as pronounced which again makes it enjoyable. The brilliant perimeter frame doesn’t compromise on stability but the tyres aren’t great. The feedback from those Zappers is minimum, especially after you try the Revz.

A masterstroke?

Bajaj is suggestings that the Dominar 250 is your ticket to the world of touring and it is not wrong this time, there’s no fancy marketing but direct messaging and that should work in the 250’s favour. At `1.6 lakh, it is the most affordable 250 on sale right now. Of course, Yamaha will bring the BS6 FZ25 sooner or later, but then the FZ is more of a performance commuter. The Dominar 250 then brings in excellent value for your money. It can finally do what the Pulsar did for Bajaj.

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E

arlier this year, we tested the BS6 TVS Apache RR 310 on the track.

However, a road test was pending and we finally have it for you this month.

Let’s refresh our memories first with what’s new. It now gets ride-by-wire throttle, riding modes, a Bluetooth-enabled digital cluster, GTT Plus and most importantly – new tyres.

We know that the RR 310 strikes the perfect balance between being a road-friendly tourer to a track-ready machine. So, do the upgrades better this equation?

The updates Get astride the RR 310 and it is hard to

WORDS : SU V RAT KO T H A RI

|

ignore the bright and crisp 5-inch TFT display. You can use the control cubes on the left handlebar to switch between the riding modes – Urban, Rain, Sport and Track, graphics for which are visible on the display. Via Bluetooth, you can access data like your best 0-60kmph and 0-100kmph times, top speed and riding pattern graphs among others. The navigation remains inconsistent as the MapMyIndia system it is based on wasn’t too accurate to start with.

Twist your wrist and the RR 310 reacts with urgency. The throttle is extremely sharp, especially in Track mode, and the RR 310 is eager to get going. There’s ample low and

Sublime levels of grip

Vertically stacked cluster looks cool

IMAGES: ABHISHEK BENNY

FRIENDLY MACHINE Are the upgrades enough to better the already brilliant TVS Apache RR 310 on the road?

Looks fast, goes fast

TVS APACHE RR 310

intervention and progressive power response. ABS is least intrusive in Track mode but overall, the stopping power is great and the brakes shed speed really well.

Sexy cuts and creases

Verdict So, is the 2020 Apache RR 310 better on the road than before? Yes, definitely. The ride-by-wire throttle aids performance and the riding modes add versatility. The TFT display too is a welcome move. My only grouse is that the engine feels stressed at higher revs, but it is not a deal breaker. For pure performance, the KTM RC range is still the best in this space, but if you are looking for a better overall package, something that’s easy to ride in traffic and thrilling on opens roads, then the TVS is definitely worth a dekko.

TECH DATA

TVS Apache RR 310 BS6 What a heart!

Highlights

ENGINE

Riding modes Michelin Road 5 tyres New digital cluster Ride-by-wire 33.5bhp 27.3Nm

Type: Bore x Stroke: Compression: Fuelling: Claimed power:

BRAKING

8

STABILITY

9

AGILITY

8

Progressive bite Super planted

Doesn’t disappoint Guaranteed

Unleash it in Track mode

ELECTRONICS

RBW/Riding Modes: Yes / 4 Traction Control: ABS: Quickshifter:

PERFORMANCE 8 FUN

Claimed torque:

Wheelie Control: Launch Control:

9

312.2cc, single cyl, l/c, 4v, DOHC 80mm x 62.1mm 10.9:1 Fuel injection 33.5bhp @ 9700rpm 27.3Nm @ 7700rpm

Autoblipper:

No Yes No No No No

CHASSIS

Frame:

Trellis, split chassis

Front suspension: Open cartridge USD forks

mid-range punch and power delivery is very linear. In Track and Sport modes, the system deploys all its 33bhp and 27.3Nm of torque while Urban and Rain modes restrict power and torque to 25bhp and 25Nm. These modes are great to use while puttering around town and you’ll barely miss the additional power unless you find an empty stretch of tarmac. The gearbox is slick and

IN TRACK AND SPORT MODES, THE SYSTEM DEPLOYS ALL ITS 33BHP AND 27.3NM

shifts very positively. You also get GTT Plus that lets the bike cruise at certain speeds without any throttle inputs. Release the clutch slowly and you can forget the worries of shifting gears in slow-moving traffic.

Moving on, no changes have been made to the suspension setup except for the forks being tweaked slightly for better front-end feel. The ride still strikes a great balance between ‘comfort’ and ‘sporty’ and the agility is excellent as well. The RR 310 doesn’t shy away from potholes and no road undulations unsettle it. Most of the credit goes to the Michelin Road 5 tyres which replace the Pilot Sport for good. I’ve been riding the RR 310 in the rain and the tyres provide excellent wet-weather grip, even while cornering and braking. The Rain mode is also handy with its maximum ABS

Rear suspension: Front brakes: Rear brakes:

Monoshock, preload adjustable 300mm disc 240mm disc

DIMENSIONS

Wheelbase: Seat height: Kerb weight: Fuel capacity:

1365mm 810mm 174kg 11 litres

INFO

Price: From:

`2.45 lakh (ex-showroom) www.tvsapache.com

Verdict

8/10

The new additions are very welcome and the Apache RR 310 BS6 continues its reign as the most complete motorcycle in its segment. + Ride-by-wire, riding modes, ride and handling – Single-cylinder clatter, navigation

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WORDS by S U D I P T O C H AU D H U RY

ADDRESSING THE UNCERTAINTIES With the lockdown tapering somewhat, we ask key players when Indian motorsport is likely to resume

I

T HAS BEEN FOUR MONTHS since the Covid-19 related lockdown hit and key people in Indian motorsport are of the consensus that racing will only resume by September–October.

There’s also a school of thought to double the number of races on the weekend so that the championships aren’t a washout. Amidst the pandemic though, Shyam Kothari of Godspeed, promoter of dirt track and supercross events puts it best when he says, “Motorsport is not really a priority at the moment.”

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Bijoy Kumar, chief of Mahindra Adventure says, “Though car rallies aren’t yet a big sport, we will still need to be careful – fans shouldn’t crowd around the circuit, and the crowd in the pits should also be regulated, with only mechanics and essential service staff permitted. Also, avoiding special stages as a one-off this year could really help with regards to containing public exposure.”

This, by the way, comes on the back of another troubling statistic. “Simply put,” Bijoy adds, “lots of businesses that usually sponsor motorsport have suffered as a result of Covid-19, so any involvement from them this year will be extremely limited. So there

M OTO R S P O RT, W H AT I S H A P P E N I N G I N I N D I A?

THE FINAL DECISION STILL RESTS WITH THE AUTH O RITIE S could be 10-20 per cent less cars on the grid.”

Race tracks have begun functioning though only for a limited number of daily entries, and only for practice sessions or at most, testing sessions by tyre manufacturers and the like. The BIC recently held a small Autocross event with limited participants and no spectators. Akbar Ebrahim of Meco Motorsports has a suggestion on how things can gradually open up. “The Tamil Nadu state cricket association has constantly been in touch with the state government for restarting the Ranji Trophy as well as Tamil Nadu Premier League matches. This constant interaction from the governing body is usually beneficial. Hence, the motorsport authorities, too, should stay in their eyes.”

Nevertheless, the lack of easy travel within the country is still a stumbling block.

For most states, travelling across borders is a long, tedious process involving the traveller to first get a negative result on a coronavirus test, based on which they must obtain an e-pass, and finally commit to a week’s home quarantine at their destination, a process not many competitive athletes are keen to follow.

A ban on inter-state travel, however, does not necessarily mean that all motorsport should grind to a halt and the common point many agree on is the resumption of grassroot level and localised events. Not only will this help drum up support for more widespread and formal categories of motorsport (as and when they can be allowed) but it will also bring in average people with an enthusiastic mindset but no real intention of entering the formal motorsports arenas, to enjoy themselves in a like-minded atmosphere.

Though the resumption of national-level motorsport is still some way off, the FMSCI is already up-to-date with a list of SOPs for when motorsport activities resume, and is only waiting for a go-ahead from the government to spring into action. L

RAJAN SYAL

BIJOY KUMAR

“We expect lots of permit applications in the coming weeks from various clubs and organisers who are ready to organise but can’t do so as they don’t have permission from local bodies or respective state governments.”

All our cars are ready and prepared to go rallying, and all our drivers are also equally energised. The ball is now in the court of the FMSCI, but until the government approves, there’s not much we can do.

SANJAY SHARMA

VICKY CHANDHOK

Things are improving, the MMRT has reopened, local riders have resumed training. but the issues around cross-border travel means competitive events cannot be held till we get clear directives from the government.

We’ve had a webinar with Kiren Rijiju, the Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs, and are waiting for the go-ahead to hold competitive events. We think this might happen by September end or the starting of October.

B SELVARAJ

SHYAM KOTHARI

Going by rules set by both the Indian authorities and by Dorna, we must ensure regular testing for the athletes, mandatory medical checks, adequate social distancing, and even minimise events, if needed.

When organising an event, there are some recurring rights to be procured from the FMSCI. So it’s good they’ve allowed this year to go by without needing us to pay anything extra to get back to action next year too.

ADITYA PATEL

AISHWARYA PISSAY

“The FMSCI supported us for the Indo-Ceylon virtual GP just by giving their blessings, which was a very important thing for us.

So it’s a start for them – supporting alternate motorsport – while nothing else is going on.”

“The FMSCI has trained lot of youngsters in the past year, and should do more of that, along with counselling talented youngsters and also making parents aware of how their children can safely pursue motorsports as a career.”

SECRETARY GENERAL, FMSCI

HEAD, JK TYRE MOTORSPORT

TEAM MANAGER, TVS RACING

CO-FOUNDER, ULTIMATE E

CHIEF, MAHINDRA ADVENTURE

PRESIDENT, MMSC

MD, GODSPEED RACING

FACTORY RIDER, TVS RACING

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HAT I LEARN HERE IS TOTALLY applicable in real life,” says Arjun Rao, one among the breed of young up-and-comers in the INRC. I’m here to check out a rig that is being talked about in reverential tones in the Indian sim racing community and bump into Arjun honing his rallying skills on it. “There’s no place I can practice,” says Arjun, highlighting the handicap most north Indian drivers have, what with all the rally testing facilities based in the south. So Arjun turned to sim racing and ended up getting faster in his actual rally car!

Sanjay Sikand is a former rally driver who never lost the bug for rallying. To satiate that thirst he built himself the ultimate gaming rig. It starts with the Simicube 2 Direct Drive Sport wheelbase – a high-end force feedback system, delivering one of the most powerful and communicative experiences you can buy, with next to no lag, and an authentic feel since you can mount on a steering wheel you’re familiar with like the OMP that Sikand relieved off his actual rally car. I tried it out, and it feels more communicative than the hydraulic steering on my last-gen Swift, forget about the EPS on the new one. You feel every tug, slip and slide that your virtual car is doing, it is surreal.

Sanjay also installed the OMP seat from his rally car onto the frame built by his company, SS Sim Solutions. Whatever you touch and feel is almost like the real thing. This includes the Heusinkveld pedals, which feel solid — like they could handle an elephant trying to left-foot brake — and provide

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WORDS by K A R A N S I N G H

FLAT OVER (VIRTUAL) CREST Should you buy a rally car or a sim racing rig? This build makes a compelling argument for the latter

U LT I M AT E RA L LY R I G

“YO U F E E L E V E RY TUG, SLIP AND SLIDE T H AT Y O U R V I R T U A L CAR IS DOING”

widely lauded, Dirt Rally 2.0. And, to be frank, I was pretty terrible. Arjun, though, was brilliant. He’s even managed to get (virtual) stage times that rank among the top five in the world! When he’s doing serious practice he uses the Ford Fiesta R2, which is front-wheel-drive like the Polo he actually rallies in and he’s set up the pedals, steering, and handbrake, to make it feel exactly like his Polo.

Now a setup like this costs a fair bit, but it isn’t merely for hobbyists — it’s more for those who are looking to make a career in motorsport. Each component can be fine-tuned and tweaked to mimic different cars, including your own rally car!

Sanjay actually trains Arjun on this rig, teaching techniques like left-foot braking, weight transfer, and even how to bring the car home in one piece. Sure, you cannot replicate the g-forces of the real thing — actually you can with the addition of something like the Motion Simulator Kit from Sim Xperience, although it would set you back the cost of an actual Rally Gypsy — but you can practice all day without shelling out on the inevitable wear and tear of your rally car. And if you crank up the air-con you won’t be completely soaked through in sweat either. L SS Sim Solutions build bespoke rigs starting from `24,500 to `45,000. Not including shipping and peripherals.

Contact them at Sikand@sikandstandley.com

feedback too. They’re made of metal, have customisable load cells and electronics, allowing for almost infinite fine tuning to match how the brakes on your rally car feel when you’ve disconnected the booster. The Heusinkveld rally-style handbrake gets a tweak-able load cell and adds to the sense of driving a rally car, as does the Asher Racing push-pull paddle shifter. The latter is made out of carbonfibre, and has an incredibly satisfying click.

Now, if you haven’t heard of Heusinkveld, that’s alright, because I hadn’t either despite being an active eSports racer myself. Think of Heusinkveld like Pagani — it doesn’t sell as many cars as Ferrari, but has an even more obsessive attention to detail. Made in the Netherlands, Heusinkveld produces in smaller numbers than Fanatec or Thrustmaster, but provides premium quality.

Driving is all about the sensations from your palms and bum and, for the latter, there’s the Sim Racing Studios ShakeKit — a cushion that relays the vibrations of the engine, clunk of the gearbox, and the surface of the road directly to your backside.

To me, it’s the one thing that really blurs the line between the game and reality. All this adds up to probably the best sim racing rig in the country.

I couldn’t just stand and stare, so I hopped into the OMP seat, to pilot a virtual Ford Fiesta R5 at Rally Australia on the Facing page: Arjun’s driving skill was almost hypnotic.

Above: Talk about a dream man cave. Right: The screens wrap around you, adding to the immersion

COMPONENTS OF YOUR ULTIMATE GAMING RIG*  Simicube 2 Sport Direct Drive wheel base  Heusinkveld Sprint Pedals  Heusinkveld Handbrake  SRS ShakeKit  Ascher Racing Push-Pull Rally Paddle Shifter  Derek Spears Design Pro Sequential Shifter  SS Sim Solutions rig  Three screens  Gaming PC  OMP steering wheel  OMP rally seat *Not including taxes and shipping

: `1.11 lakh : `50,000 : `17,000 : `18,000 : `18,000 : `22,000 : From `24,500 to `45,000 : `15,000 (each) : `1 lakh (approx) : `20,000 (approx) : `85,000 (approx)

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WORDS by S U D I P T O C H AU D H U RY

MRF debuts in ERC

Craig Breen narrowly misses the podium on the first outing of the European Rally Championship in the Hyundai i20 R5, running new made-in-India tyres T’S TWO YEARS SINCE MRF BECAME THE FIRST Indian tyre manufacturer to take part in the WRC2, post which they took a break to develop the tyres with the stated aim of returning to the cutting-edge of world rallying. They are now back, committing to a full season of the European Rally Championship with WRC regular Craig Breen while also supporting Emil Lindholm in a limited ERC1 campaign in the Skoda Fabia R5 evo.

The ERC campaign kicked off with the Rally de Roma Capitale with Craig Breen and Paul Nagle in the Hyundai i20 R5 finishing fourth, while Emil Lindholm and Mikael Korhonen in the Skoda Fabia R5 evo2 finished tenth. The latter are also entered in the ERC1 category for junior drivers where they took fifth position, a great start to their campaign.

Held on the last weekend of July, the first leg of the ERC comprised six stages and 97km of rallying. Stage 1 saw the competitor starting ahead of Lindholm crashing out and blocking a part of the stage, thus slowing him down. Meanwhile, Breen set the second fastest time in Stage 1 and third fastest time in Stage 2 showing great performance from the MRF Tyres. Worth keeping in mind here is that while MRF aren’t new to international rallying, what with over a decade under their belt in the APRC, this is the first time that they have developed Tarmac rally tyres for WRC2-spec cars.

In the third (21.7km) stage, Breen had car issues while Lindholm said his performance was “Not perfect, but ok.” This dropped them down the order but both drivers finished the first day within the top ten with Breen in fifth, a good start to MRF’s campaign.

Day two saw Breen locked in a huge battle for fourth position with Simone Tempestini with the pair swapping positions through the day.

Breen had started the final loop in fifth place but immediately moved to fourth, consolidating the gap on the second-last stage and building a 4.5 second gap before the final stage. In the end, Breen controlled the pace to take fourth place by 1.3 seconds to Tempestini.

“We gave it pretty much everything we had,” said Breen. “We made gradual improvements over the weekend to learn how to get the best out of the tyre. To finish fourth is great and an absolute credit to the team. We gained a lot of valuable data on this rally.”

For Emil Lindholm and Mikael Korhonen in the Skoda Fabia evo2 R5, it was all about consolidation and improving the car across each of the loops to finish in the top ten. The Skoda duo continued to refine their setup through the day with the three passes over each stage giving the team a great opportunity to collect data for the future development of the tyre.

“We were able to make improvements to the setup at each service point. It is a process of learning how to maximise the tyre and maximise my own performance. This rally was always about gaining more information on the tyre for its future development.”

All in all, Team MRF Racing’s first European Rally Championship attempt, with both cars finishing within the top ten, means everything the brand learnt from its 2018 WRC2 foray is finally coming to fruition. This was best summed up by Craig Breen saying, “To think that this tyre barely existed a few weeks ago and to come out and be so competitive is a credit to the team.”

Team MRF now moves to Rally Liepaja, to be held on the weekend of August 14-16 on the coast of Latvia for ten gravel stages spread across a total competitive distance of 180km. L

PARTS, MODS, BUILDS, GARAGES, TUNERS & TECH

WHITE WIDOW Kicking off our brand-new section on tuner cars with none other than the Skoda Octavia RS — a car with a storied past and a favourite of the tuner community in India

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S K O D A O C TAV I A R S S TA G E 3 + WORDS by KARAN SINGH & PHOTOGRAPHY by ABU ABRAHAM

F THERE WAS ONE CAR responsible for growing the tuner culture in India, it has to be the Octavia RS. Sure there’s also the Gen 1 Honda City VTEC but the Octavia RS has grabbed headlines like nothing else over the years. 300bhp! 400bhp! Even 500bhp! The Octavia RS has been warmed over, boosted, massaged and cranked up by tuners all over the country, helped no doubt by bolt-on parts being available for not just the engine but also the chassis to handle the ramp-up in power.

And so, when shortlisting cars for our new Tuner section, we had to start off with the fan favourite, the Octy RS. Right out of the factory the RS is a quick car. The Gen 1 was the first turbo-petrol car in the country, a road-rocket by all accounts.

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And of course the current-gen Skoda Octavia RS 230 continues to count itself amongst the ‘extremely fast’ category with 227bhp and 350Nm of torque courtesy of the 2-litre TSI engine, mated to the rapid six-speed DSG gearbox. It might just be all the car you’ll ever need, no wonder then that it has gained such a cult following among enthusiasts here in India.

In fact, they’re so sought after that you rarely find used examples and those that come on the market are agonisingly close to the brand new prices.

The price to performance ratio is one thing.

Then the sheer availability of go-faster parts comes in. The EA888 G3 engine is one of the most widely modded engines on the planet, going from plaster-a-smile-on-your-face fast to I-need-a-barf-bag fast. Just a casual scroll

through @staytunedindia’s Instagram feed will make your eyes pop with the number of Octavia RS’ that lean toward the loony end of the scale — exemplified by the white example we have here.

“The stock car is powerful by any standards, more than sufficient for Indian roads,” says Rahul Kodidini of Harmonixx Tuning in Bengaluru. “One week after I bought the RS, I modified it to Stage 2 with 800-odd kilometres on the odometer,” he adds.

Here’s what a Stage 2 upgrade involves. It starts with a bunch of APR goodies including a downpipe, intercooler, turbo-muffler delete, turbo inlet pipe, silicon hoses, carbonfibre intake and an oil catch can. This is in addition to an APR Stage 2 ECU tune accompanied by a re-mapped traction control unit. The

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Clockwise from top: Christmas has come early for Rahul; quality work results in an almost OEM look; aftermarket rims are one of the few cosmetic additions; the dyno would surely have its work cut out

tyres were upsized to 225/45/17 Yokohama Advan Neova AD-08Rs, to cope with the extra horses. And how many, you ask? 369bhp and 606Nm of torque at the crank, tested on Arka Motorsportsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; dyno in Coimbatore. But Rahul was just getting started.

After about 13,000 (very fast, we can safely assume) kilometres, Rahul decided it was time to up the ante. The stock turbo was swapped for the IHI IS38 turbo, the OEM part boosting the Volkswagen Golf R Mk7, along with NGK R7437-9 spark plugs and 034 Motorsports Dogbone mount insert. The factory mounts would be twisted and destroyed by the

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viciousness of the torque punched out by the tuned engine under hard acceleration and the Dogbone mount inserts stiffen it up to prevent carnage.

At this stage the car was producing 417bhp and 590Nm at the crank. And for those of you interested, it also managed to return 13kmpl on the drive from Coimbatore to Bangalore. The car was entered into Vroom 2018, a drag event held at Taneja runway in Bangalore, where it came first in the B7 category and second in Indian Open Stock Body, clocking a quarter mile time of 12.918 seconds.

About 30,000 kilometres later, Rahul was

S PECIFICATIO N Engine Suspension Gearbox Tyres

Brakes 0-100kmph 100-200kmph Power Torque

1968cc, 4- c yl, turbo -petrol (E A888 G3) Racingline s truts and lowering spring s Stock 6 -speed DSG 234/40/ 18 Michelin Pilot Spor t Cup 2 t yre s, 18-inch Racingline Cup Edition rims APR 350mm big brake kit 4. 54 seconds (claimed) 7.6 seconds 528bhp 650Nm

S K O D A O C TAV I A R S S TA G E 3 +

1 0 0 T O 2 0 0 K M P H TA K E S J U S T 7. 6 S E C O N D S , L E T T H AT S I N K I N “bored” of the power. Out went the IS38 turbo and in came the Borg Warner EFR7163 kit from APR, along with a bunch of other modifications. This includes the APR Stage 3+ 98RON ECU tune and Stage 3+ TCU tune. APR Race downpipe, Racingline R600 intake and turbo inlet hose, APR high and low pressure fuel pumps, Volkswagen Golf R injectors, APR ignition coils, AEM 5 bar MAP (Manifold Absolute Pressure) sensor, Bosch 4 bar PUT sensor and an APR boost tap and Dogbone mount. Additionally Racingline Billet components have replaced the standard coolant expansion cap, oil and DSG filler housing, oil filter cap, oil dipstick and washer fluid cap. It also got a water-methanol injection kit, to reduce air inlet temperatures.

Power, as they say, is nothing without control. To improve handling, Racingline struts and lowering springs were added. The anchors were also upgraded with an APR 350mm big brake kit, and with the car “torque steering one and a half lanes each time, the turbo hit full boost,” the tyres were upgraded to 235/40 R18 Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres, wrapped around 18-inch Racingline Cup Edition rims. A Racingline subframe alignment kit was added, which tightens up the factory tolerances in subframe mounts, resulting in more accurate steering, better handling and braking. A Remus Valvetronic Resonated Catback exhaust system was also added to make it sound even better than it already did.

The result? 528bhp and 650Nm of torque at the crank, enabling an impressive 0 to 100kmph time of 4.54 seconds — limited by the traction of the front-wheel drive car. Even more impressive is the 100 to 200kmph time which takes just 7.6 seconds. Let that sink in. So, what’s the catch?

Not much really. Rahul has now clocked over 38,000km on the car and apart from the 4 bar PUT sensor dying on the initial trial run, the car has been “extremely reliable so far”. Sure, the maintenance has to be done at shorter intervals — a regular service every 7500km, oil change every 7500km with Motul 8100 X-Cess engine oil, DSG fluids every 30,000km and spark plugs every 15,000km. But that’s about it. Rahul uses this missile as his daily driver, and of the 80 Octavia RS’ Harmonixx has tuned (yes, eighty!), including the grey one on the first page which is pushing 350 horses, none have faced reliability issues with the hardware or software that they have installed.

What I personally love about this build is how clean it looks. Eagle-eyed petrolheads will notice the lowered ride height, aftermarket rims and when it passes by, you won’t miss the burble from the Remus exhaust. But apart from that, this is a wonderful sleeper, a practical 4-door sedan with a massive boost that can chase Porsches! L Harmonixx Tuning can be contacted at +918762801414 or sales@ harmonixxtuning.com

OCTY RS STAGE 3+ Skoda Octavia RS Stage 3+ build cost `36 lakh and includes the following parts:

APR Stage 3+ Borg Warner EFR7163 Turbo Kit APR Stage 3+ 98RON ECU Tune APR Stage 3+ TCU Tune APR Race Downpipe Racingline R600 intake and turbo inlet Hose APR intercooler and hoses Racingline Oil Management System with oil catch can APR high pressure fuel pump APR low pressure fuel pump Volkswagen Golf R-spec injectors APR ignition coils AEM 5 bar MAP sensor Bosch 4 bar PUT sensor APR boost tap APR Pendulum mount APR Dogbone mount 034 Motorsports upper Dogbone mount NGK R7437-9 spark plugs Racingline Billet coolant expansion cap Racingline Billet oil and DSG filter housing Racingline Billet oil filter cap Racingline Billet oil dipstick Racingline washer fluid cap APR coolant hose APR 350mm big brake kit Remus Valvetronic Resonated Catback Exhaust Racingline Cup Edition 18-inch rims Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 235/40 R18 tyres APR adjustable drop links Racingline stud and nut kit Racingline subframe alignment kit

TUNED

POCKET ROCKET One of the country’s top tuners, Race Concepts, has been building the ultimate ‘bang for the buck’ Maruti-Suzuki Zen. The result is a pint-sized, agile track-weapon with the ability to set some blistering laptimes

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MIGHT Y ZEN WORDS by K AR A N SINGH & PHOTOGR APH Y by SRIK A NTH TIRUPATTUR

“IT’S LIKE A GROWN UP GO-KART,” says Joel Joseph, the man behind Race Concepts, among India’s leading go-faster shops. Joel made his name tuning the Gen 1 Honda City VTEC, both in naturally aspirated and turbocharged guise, and also building the fastest Indian Touring Car in the country that demolished the MMRT lap time at the last race weekend before the lockdown hit. He takes great pride in the fact that all his testing and validation is done on the racetrack and then transferred to road cars. Race Concepts have their own dyno so all their claims are tested and verified, not figures pulled out from nowhere.

Joel’s shop in Bengaluru is always swarming with projects, but the lockdown and

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subsequent cancellation of all motorsport events meant that for the first time, there wasn’t much to do at the shop. So, they took a second look at the two-door Zen Steel lying in a corner of their workshop since 2016, and got the spanners out.

Now Zen upgrades usually start with throwing out the 1-litre engine for either the 1.3 from the Esteem or the 1.6 from the (old) Baleno. This build uses the 1298cc G13BB SOHC engine, upgraded with forged internals and custom parts, all developed in-house. It gets race-spec cylinder heads, uprated valvetrain components, aluminium underdrive pulleys and a single throttle body intake system with high flow injectors complemented by uprated fuel pumps, lines and a custom fuel rail system.

There is also a BMC carbonfibre airbox for better breathing and to charge more cold air into the intake. Engine management is via the Race Dynamics RD R200 ECU while a closeratio gearbox paired to a stage 2 Exedy racespec clutch and Cusco limited-slip differential sends the power to the front wheels. There is also an aluminium flywheel and custom driveshafts to take the bump up in power.

The engine has been built to meet the FMSCI Autocross regulations, so independent throttle bodies weren’t allowed — a relief according to Joel since that also saves costs.

The engine mounts have been fabricated inhouse to motorsport-grade.

On the safety front the chassis has been seam-welded and then reinforced along with

O N LY T H E B A R E MINIMUM HAS B E E N R E TA I N E D .

B ECAUS E , RACECAR

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T H I S Z E N WA S A N E N G I N E E R I N G E X E R C I S E FOR RACE CONCE P T S

an FMSCI-spec roll cage. The McPherson struts at the front have reworked uprights with a custom geometry, custom lower arms, revised geometry for the rear beam axle and a custom sway bar with an in-built strut tower brace.

The team also developed and built bespoke coilover dampers for the Zen. The anchors have been upgraded to larger 245mm rotors, with Nissin callipers at the front and OEM drum brakes at the rear. The PCD for the wheels has been changed to 100mm to accommodate the larger 14-inch Sparco Motorsport rims.

It runs MRF competition rubber while the front and rear arches have been widened to accommodate the wider tyres.

To cut weight, the left door is made of composite, as is the bootlid. The mouldings have all been done in-house. There is also custom skirting down the sides and a lip at the front.

Pop inside and you’ll notice an FIA-spec Sparco seat, FIA-spec OMP steering wheel, an Auto Meter tachometer, and not much else.

Only the bare minimum has been retained.

Because, racecar.

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What does all this mean in terms of numbers? A power output of more than 170 horses at peak revs of 7900rpm and a 0-100kmph time in the region of 5.5 seconds.

In a car that has a dry weight of 760kg. But numbers only tell you half the story.

“All you have to do is clench your teeth and

put the throttle down,” says Joel who took the Zen on its first outing to the Meco Kartopia for an Autocross event, clocking the fastest time at 1 minute and 5 seconds. This was over two seconds quicker than the previous lap record for cars.

While Joel’s usual builds are characteristically manic, this Zen has been built with a different approach. “We didn’t want to spend too much money on it,” says Joel, “the idea was to build a full-blown racecar for around `5 to 6 lakh”. This led to some ingenious engineering solutions by the team at Race Concepts. For starters, a motorsportspec brake bias valve would cost around `13,000, which isn’t exactly cost effective.

So the team re-engineered an industrial fluid pressure valve to work as a brake bias valve, costing them just `2000. The gearbox is not a dog ’box, it is still a regular H-pattern synchro gearbox and has been built with a mix and match of aftermarket and OEM parts, costing less than a third of a gearbox that they would typically put in their ITC cars.

MIGHT Y ZEN

S PECIFICATIO N Engine Chassis Suspension Gearbox Tyres

Brakes

0-100kmph Power Dry weight

In -line 4- c yl, 1298cc, SOHC (Suzuki G13BB) Reinforced, f ully seam -welded McPherson s truts at the front, beam a xle at the rear Close ratio, H -pattern s y nchro 'box 14-inch Sparco Motorspor t rims, MRF Competition slicks 245mm rotors at the front with Nis sin C alipers, OEM rear drum brake s 5. 5 seconds (claimed) 170bhp+ @7900rpm 760k g

The brakes too are a result of re-engineering, running Honda City iVTEC-spec callipers. A fully forged brake kit would cost north of a lakh of rupees, “but we did this full system in `30,000”. The camshaft is custom ground and isn’t a very aggressive cam profile. But to counter that, the cylinder head has been designed to allow for more flow. The purpose was not just to keep the cost low, but to keep it low and still build a car that can perform at a very very high level.

Joel says he could build the same Zen, put wider arches, multi-link suspension at the rear, put the best brakes on the market and the best dampers and it would end up costing `25-30lakh. This “cost-effective” Zen can run at almost the same pace, for less than onefourth the cost. “People want bragging rights, but the functional bits are all that you need,” says Joel, quite emphatically. The long list of expensive parts some tuners might throw on don’t really justify the performance gains. This project was an engineering exercise for Race Concepts to validate their concepts and while it may not pack the punch or have the showstopping ability of their ITC cars, this little Zen is probably one of the most ingeniously built cars in the country. It took 70 days of work and brainstorming to build it, and Joel is only getting started. L Race Concepts can be contacted at support@raceconcepts.in or +91 9945487653 Top to bottom: Ingenuity at every step of the build; the plaque that makes other ITC cars tremble; engine bay is kept pristine; positive attitude, negative camber

RACE CONCEPTS ZEN The build took 70 days and cost `6 lakh, not including the cost of the donor car. It excludes the BMC airbox, Race Dynamics ECU and MRF slicks. It includes: Suzuki G13BB SOHC 1298cc motor Forged internals with custom developed parts Custom ground race cam Adjustable cam wheel High flow oil pump Full race-spec cylinder head with uprated valvetrain components Aluminium underdrive pulleys Single throttle body intake system High flow injectors with uprated fuel pump and lines Custom fuel rail Race Dynamics RD R200 Engine Management system BMC Carbonfibre Airbox Close ratio gearbox Cusco Limited Slip Differential Stage 2 Exedy race clutch Aluminium flywheel Custom length driveshafts Fully seam welded and reinforced chassis FMSCI-spec roll cage McPherson strut at the front with corrected uprights Custom lower arms Beam Axle at the rear, with revised geometry Coilovers developed in-house with multi level adjustment Custom sway bar and built-in Strut tower brace 245mm brake upgrade with Nissin calipers OEM rear drum brakes PCD shift from 114mm to 100mm Wider front and rear wheel arches Sparco FIA seat, five point seatbelt OMP FIA steering wheel Sparco Motorsport rims 14-inch MRF Competition Slicks Composite left door and bootlid Vented front metal bonnet OEM front and rear bumpers with custom front lip and side skirts OEM fuel tank

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LOUD AND CLEAR! Akrapovič is the most iconic manufacturer of car and bike exhaust systems and it is now available in India

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A K R A P OV I C WORDS by KARAN SINGH

FTERMARKET EXHAUSTS ARE perhaps one of the most common modifications done to a car. We’ve all wanted our daily driver to sound like a firebreathing rally car at some point. While there are a lot of options to choose from now, that wasn’t the case around 30 years ago. In fact, it was the lack of a high-quality exhaust system for motorcycle racing in his home country of Slovenia (then behind the Iron Curtain) that led to Igor Akrapovič designing a set of pipes for his own racing bike. Making a start as oneoff exhaust systems for private race teams back in the early 90s, Akrapovič is now the primary choice for teams in the Dakar, MotoGP, Le Mans and FIA WEC. So, why do companies with massive budgets and years of experience go to a third party for the exhaust system? While it is true that carmakers have huge facilities and tons of expertise in what they’re doing, Akrapovič is geared for just one component. They even have their own titanium foundry and this allows them to develop state-of-the-art exhaust systems that surpass the standards of manufacturers, so much so that they’re now being contacted to develop exhaust systems for high-performance versions of road cars complete with manufacturer warranty like the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio.

Closer to home, a casual Sunday drive in your city will be all the evidence you’ll need for the growing performance car culture. Not just in terms of the number of tuner cars in the country, but the number of people who are taking those cars out of the garages and driving them like they’re meant to. “Customers today already know what they want,” says Manik Bhardwaj of Racetech India, recently given official supplier status for Akrapovič automotive exhausts in India. He highlights that what

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AKR AP OVIC AM PLIFIE S TH E CHARAC TE RIS TIC SOUND OF EACH CAR differentiates Akrapovič from its competitors is that they control the entire manufacturing process, right from the raw material. “That’s like running a restaurant with produce from your own garden,” Manik adds. This not only helps maintain standrards of quality but also allows them the option of blending their own amalgamation of materials, perfectly suited for their exhaust systems. It has only been a few months since Racetech became the official supplier in the country, but the orders are already coming in hot, like the limited edition exhaust for the Mercedes-AMG G 63.

Called the Evolution Line Black Edition, it is a titanium exhaust system with black tailpipes.

While it sounds like a simple enough job to do, any coating on the exhaust material tends to crumble or just come off over time, but not here. A lot of complex engineering has gone into making sure these exhausts are durable.

This is a time-consuming production process which means that only 40 of these systems have been produced, and only 20 of them with the required particulate filter to meet Euro 6 (and BS6) norms. And one of those systems is making its way to India. “These people are crazy,” exclaims Manik, a whiff of something ‘limited edition’ and his clients are headover-wheels! Although Racetech has received

orders for three Black Edition systems, after a lot of persuasion, Akrapovič managed to allot just one to them.

Even so, Akrapovič will not be the most popular choice for buyers in the country, “it’s like saying Richard Mille’s watches will be popular”. A full system for the G 63 AMG costs `5.81 lakh (plus GST) while a slip-on system for the BMW M2 Competition costs `3.5 lakh (plus GST). The price difference to other exhaust systems is one thing, but the second is also that it is “an acquired taste” as Manik tells me.

In any case, you won’t find Akra exhausts for run-of-the-mill cars. Every Akrapovič exhaust is tested and the horsepower gains are verified on the dyno. For example, a full Evolution system for the G 63 AMG puts out 18.5bhp and 36Nm more while being 5kg lighter. A slip-on system for the BMW M2 Competition cranks up the power and torque by 5bhp and 6Nm while reducing weight by 10kg and the Evolution system takes the gains up to 10bhp and 24Nm. There are exhaust systems on the market that are louder than Akrapovič, maybe even have more pops and bangs. However, Akrapovič amplifies the characteristic sound of each car, bringing out the underlying and unique DNA of the car. This means that only the most discerning buyer will shell out that little bit extra and that exclusivity is what makes Akrapovič that much more special. L Racetech can be contacted at +91-8041712727 or info@racetech.co.in

Facing page: Exhaust system for the G 63 AMG is suitably menacing. Top, left: Koenigsegg Regera’s unique fishtail exhaust is built by Akrapovič too.

Top, right: A masterclass in making mostly hidden components beautiful www.

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SILENT FURY

BIGGER ENGINES, LARGER TURBOS, STRONGER INTERNALS, TUNED EXHAUSTS — ALL TRADITIONAL WAYS OF TUNING YOUR CAR. BUT WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH AN ELECTRIC?

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M AC H E 1 4 0 0 WORDS by SUDIPTO CHAUDHURY

USCLE CARS. LOW-SLUNG, BIG hoods and misleading names.

6.6-litre ‘small block’ V8! Really?

Ostensibly, the muscle car phenomenon is an American construct. Since the 1970s the idea of a fast car in America has been linked inexplicably to that oft-used adage of ‘no replacement for displacement.’ While designers and engineers in Europe and Japan were busy extracting tack-sharp performance from eight-, ten- and twelve-cylinder engines and putting them into ever lighter cars built using composite materials, American automakers capped the cylinders to eight, set their sights on the next NASCAR race... and that’s basically it. Trifles like high-speed handling and aero were kept just that: trifles.

After all, as long as you were going fast in a

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straight line, turning left four times a lap, and not flying off track, you were all set.

It’s a small step for Ford...

Late 2019, Mustang fans were left enthused (or aghast, depending on which side of the fence you were on) by the Mustang Mach-E SUV. The Pony Car, the all-American symbol of performance, has gone electric. Out goes the V8 and in comes a 75.7kWh or 98.8kWh extended-range lithium-ion battery. Ford claim 327bhp and 565Nm output from the base version, while the GT gets 453bhp and 830Nm. And the Mustang is no longer a car. It’s an SUV! Now the Mustang has always had halo models with mad numbers, but what do you do with an electric SUV? Enter the Mustang Cobra Jet 1400 prototype with

1400 horsepower and over 1491Nm of instant torque, a fitting tribute to the eponymous dragster that terrorised drag strips in the 1960s. The modern reincarnation is good for a quarter-mile time of under 8 seconds, with a top whack in excess of 280kmph. Talk about instant gratification.

And that finally brings us to the latest, and undoubtedly greatest hot rod to exit Ford’s stables — the one-off Mustang Mach-E 1400.

Built by Ford and RTR Vehicles, a tuning firm specialising in Ford vehicles started by racer Vaughn Gittin Jr, it took 10,000 hours to develop. Capable of both two- or all-wheeldrive, this 1400 horsepower madhouse on wheels has seven motors – three powering the front axle, four powering the rear, stacked up like a ‘pancake’ – so I guess the ‘displacement’

THE ‘ DISPL ACE ME NT ’ ADAG E HA S B E E N MODIFIED TO ‘NUMBER OF MOTORS’

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M AC H E 1 4 0 0

Facing page clockwise from top: Running circles around the gymkhana king? Easy peasy; screen to help change performance settings; out to conquer the world; RTR Vehicles logo on any Ford equals mayhem

Nascar Mustang. Then with Vaugh Gittin Jr at the wheel, it went toe-to-toe against each of them in a variety of modes, and of course emerged doing smoky donuts around them all.

adage has been modified to ‘number of motors’.

There is a single driveshaft connecting all seven motors to the differentials, and the system can be tuned to whatever the driver wishes to do — be it drifting or setting lightning-quick lap times. Ford says the Mach-E 1400’s nickel manganese cobalt battery can last for about 20-30 minutes of aggressive driving, after which it takes 45 minutes for a full recharge.

The Mach-E 1400 matches the Cobra Jet 1400 in a straight line but also has an abundance of aero appendages aimed towards lap times. Case in point, that massive rear wing which produces a claimed 1000kg of downforce at 258kmph. Ford introduced the Mach-E 1400 in a mad video running it alongside Ken Block’s ’65 Mustang Hoonicorn RTR V2, Chelsea Denofa’s 2020 Mustang Shelby GT 350R and Hailie Deegan’s 2019

So what does the future hold?

Let’s address the basics first. Will the future of muscle cars sound like a million-strong swarm of bees? Not really. Behind the grille up front (you didn’t notice this EV has an actual grille, did you?) lies a military-grade LRAD or Long Range Acoustic Device loudspeaker on which the driver can play whatever exhaust note they want, at up to eardrum-splitting sound levels.

The Mach-E 1400’s 56.8kW lithium-ion battery is designed for thrill rides, and not for range, so you’re probably not looking at your next Mustang, but at a glimpse of the future, with a chance for a highly customisable electric (or hybrid) Mustang that can go from drifting to drag racing to grocery runs as and when desired.

The Mach-E 1400 will likely give birth to a new generation of baby Mustangs, which might just infuse a modicum of sporty behaviour into boring everyday electric vehicles, giving us the idea of affordable (or at least less than astronomically priced) electric supercars

not being too far fetched. Simultaneously, enthusiasts’ interests in the plain-jane Mach-E SUV skyrocketed, especially considering the modification potential.

Ford dropped a bomb with the Cobra Jet 1400, but the Mach-E 1400, with its aviationgrade power and unimaginable levels of torque, does something completely different: it gives the prospect of making even a morning commute an epic adventure. We knew the future is coming, but had no idea it would be heralded by a 1400-horsepower rocketship from the manufacturer that revolutionised mass production. History repeating itself?

Hope so! L

S PECIFICATIO N Power Motor Battery Tyres Suspension Brakes

1380bhp (claimed) 7 Ya sa P400 elec tric motors, (3 front, 4 rear) 56.8 kWh, Nickel Mangane se Cobalt pouch cells Nitto N555 G2 275/35 -18 Öhlins dampers, pushrod setup Brembo rotors, six-pis ton c alipers

C O B R A J E T 1 4 0 0 WA S A B O M B , B U T THE MACH - E 1400 IS ANOTHE R M AT T E R E N T I R E LY

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TRIED & TESTED TH E B EST M OTO RI N G PRO D U C TS , PUT TH RO U G H TH EI R PAC ES BY E VO I N DIA

E ARE NO STRANGERS TO THE MRF Perfinza series of tyres. Back in 2017, our long-term Mercedes-Benz CLA was among the first cars to try out these tyres specially designed for luxury cars, and which have also been tested by and approved by Mercedes-Benz. The Perfinzas went a long way to smoothen out the CLA’s very stiff ride and make it more liveable on a daily basis. A year later we tested another set of MRF Perfinzas on a completely different car — my Mitsubishi Evo 6.5. And the great thing was that not only did the tyres help with the ride of the Evo, they also provided excellent grip for a very demanding four-wheel drive car.

So it was an absolute no-brainer when I decided to upsize the wheels and tyres on my Maruti Suzuki S-Cross, I wanted to slap on another set of the MRF Perfinza tyres. This is my new daily runabout and it is the one with the 1.6 diesel engine that offers scope for releasing more horses. But before we bumped up the power, the car desperately needed a better set of boots, the stock tyres were woefully undertyred both visually and in terms of performance.

Since we needed new rims I thought it best to go the whole nine yards with the maximum upsize the S-Cross can handle, and when I chanced upon these set of gold-hued rims my mind was made. Blue car, gold rims, evokes strong Subaru rally car images!

Of course I had doubts, especially since I was going up two sizes from the 16-inch wheels that come standard on the S-Cross. MRF’s engineers were kind enough to identify the size that would be appropriate for the upsize, which is 245/45 R18.

Initial worries about the tyres being too lowprofile and too wide for the car proved unfounded and the tyres don’t rub against the fender linings, despite the massive upgrade from the standard 205/60 R16 size. Oh, and it looks absolutely fantastic giving the S-Cross a strongly aggressive stance.

Unfortunately, soon after the we had the tyres fitted, the nation wide lockdown was announced and being a responsible citizen, I’ve hardly done any miles. I did manage a work trip from Pune to Mumbai and back, which gave me a chance to test out the performance of the 18-inch Perfinzas. And I’m happy to report that the ride is not too far off the high profile 16’s. What has really improved is the way it

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MRF PERFINZA TYRES 245/45 R18 `18,000/- per tyre (approx)

handles bumps and undulating surfaces, providing a more surefooted feel, thanks to a wider contact patch. It has made the S-Cross feel more car-like to drive, which is something only a good set of tyres can help you achieve.

With the monsoons just setting in, what’s worth special mention is the performance of the Perfinzas in the wet, which is a million miles better than the skinny tyres it rode on earlier. The MRFs provide the car with a more controlled and stable feel through the corners in the wet, with the nose tucking into the apex nicely and holding its line. The constant understeer of the S-Cross has been completely cured and it is only now that you actually can explore the abilities; even understand the abilities of the S-Cross’ chassis. The Perfinzas have really aided the overall handling and dynamics of the car, making it feel much more agile and lively. Not surprisingly, the bigger size has also helped give the steering a nicer, sharper feel which gives you the confidence to carry more speed through a corner.

Though I’ve only clocked about 700 kilometres so far on these new MRFs, I’m happy with the ride they have offered in city use too. It would be unfair to compare it to the 60 profile tyres, but they do a great job for how much lower the car is now. They still feel soft enough, despite its low profile and manage to iron out the most undulations and ripples in the road, without transmitting much vibration to the cabin.

The big improvement while driving within town is the reduced stopping distances thanks to the wide contact patch and the excellent compound, which is clearly designed for cars that far exceed the level

of performance of the humble S-Cross. It gives me confidence to now work on the engine and extract more horses which, I’m sure, can be easily unlocked.

Like I said, we’re no strangers to the ability of these tyres, having already run them on a variety of cars earlier. So far it has been a great balance of performance and comfort. Our past experience of the Perfinzas was limited to 16-inch sizes but these 18s are the true test for the MRF Perfinza series and, so far, I’m happy to report that they are just as good.

We’ll be assessing the performance in the months to come to gauge things like long-term durability, but from our experience in the past and the high standards of MRF tyres, I think they should hold up well.

Aniruddha A Rangnekar (@aniruddha_ar)

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Volkswagen Tiguan The Ed highlights comments he has got from Tiguan owners on his social media

These comments are a testimony to its ability – on the road, off of it and the sense of security it delivers

AY BE IT’S BECAUSE I AM DRIVING one, but I’ve seen a fair few Volkswagen Tiguans on the road — particularly noticeable these days when traffic is sparse due to the on-again off-again lockdowns. And I’ve been getting quite a lot of comments whenever I post anything on the Tiguan on my social media. Here are some of the cooler ones I have come across so far.

AGPlayBook on Instagram uses his Tiguan on the school run and doesn’t see, “A better car in this price bracket.” He likes the all-black interior, praises the solid build and feeling of safety and says, “The motor has just enough to not make you fall asleep.” Then again his other cars are a 911 and M2 Competition so his performance demands are something else.

Former rally driver GS Joshy loves the ride, handling and power though he has noticed excessive rear brake wear. I haven’t experienced that on both the Tiguans I have long-term tested so this might be a one-off or it may be his press-on driving style and the hilly terrain around his plantations making the

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brakes work harder. On Instagram Randeepsa highlights the ride and handling. “In that price and size range there is nothing that comes even close,” he says after using the Tiguan for three years while also adding “the experience with Volkswagen has been excellent.”

More comments on Instagram, this from Sudhirg760 who upgraded to the Tiguan after his Rapid was written off. “I wouldn’t have survived in a car of any other make,” he adds highlighting the build quality of VW Group cars. “It’s a delight and built like a proper VW”, is his verdict after six months and 12,000km.

On my picture of the Tiguan hauling supplies for the farm, Durgesh Khodani comments that he’s “craving to stretch” the legs of his Tiguan. Aneesh Kashyap, who has one of the cleanest, shiniest Tiguans on Instagram, rues the lack of headlamp washers. I remind him that cornering lights are another miss. Aneesh is now looking for an off-road bumper and H&R lift springs to raise it by an inch because he takes it off-road very often.

All these comments are a testimony to the

Tiguan’s ability — on the road, off of it and most of all, to the build quality and sense of security and safety that it delivers. Of course this spec of the Tiguan has been discontinued and in its place is the 7-seater Allspace with the 2-litre TSI petrol, which has Aneesh all excited. “It’s basically the same engine as the [Octy] RS 245 so can easily be tuned to 350+ bhp, has the DQ500 gearbox to handle 500Nm, and couple that to the AWD it will be quicker than the vRS.” Now that’s a cool project for persistent tinkerer Prithwi Ray who, following our stories on the Tiguan, just took delivery of an Allspace. He should know if it’s possible, his other car is an Octy RS245. L Sirish Chandran (@SirishChandran)

Date acquired January 2020 Total mileage 6079km Mileage this month 800km Costs this month `0 Overall kmpl 16.2kmpl (empty highway to the farm!)

evo Fleet AN AN ELECTRIC CAR BE THE ONLY car in your garage? These weird times that we find ourselves in, where you need an e-pass to get out of your city, where there is no need and even active discouragement from venturing outside of your immediate locality, where work from home is going to become more of a thing… yes! Yes, an electric car can be your only car.

And with something with the near-300km range as the Kona Electric, you can do intercity runs like Mumbai-Pune and even back in the same day (as long as you plug it in while you conduct your business).

Its sheer convenience means I’ve been using the Kona as my daily-driver in the city and I have zero complaints. It is easy to drive, effortless, bloody rapid and I don’t have to worry about sanitising my credit card after handing it over to a petrol pump attendant.

Who knew that one of the drawbacks of an electric car, that you can only juice it up at home (or work, but who is going to work these days), would prove to be its plus point!

On the same subject, it doesn’t need to go to the dealership either for a regular service.

Or does it? Honestly I don’t know, I’m just assuming that sans an engine an EV doesn’t have that 10 or 15,000km service interval though I must find out. After all there must be something that needs fresh oil and some

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Hyundai Kona Electric Fast, effortless and cheap to run. Will an EV make you forget an ICE?

fluids must need topping up.

A stupid thing I did when I took the Kona out to the grocers was run over a nail left behind by the metro construction work which cut the side wall. The lockdown meant I was stuck with a space saver for over a month till I could get hold of a replacement tyre but that’s now sorted and I’m back to using the Kona whenever I need to step out.

One thing that I must point out though is that electric cars lack soul. After using only the Kona for the first month of the lockdown I swapped to the Creta and, oh boy, driving a

car with an engine, a gearbox, it felt so alive.

Like a living, breathing thing. Even though it was only a short city commute the IC felt remarkably different from the EV. More engaging and more involving. But it was also more noisy and not as seamless, responsive, or, erm, electric.

So there. EVs won’t make you forget conventional petrol/diesel cars. But it can be the only car in your garage.

Oh, a side note. It costs ridiculously little to juice up. Like you, I too have got a massive electricity bill but that is thanks to running the air-con non-stop this past summer, not charging the Kona. L Sirish Chandran (@SirishChandran)

Date acquired February 2020 Total mileage 5630km Mileage this month 180km Costs this month `18,000 (new tyre) Overall kmpl `1.2/km running cost

Its sheer convenience means I’ve been using the Kona as my dailydriver in the city

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T H E EVO E N CYC LO P E D I A : K- L

ENCYCLOPEDIA

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Richard Porter goes from ‘Ka’ to ‘Lump’ as we approach the halfway mark on our journey through motoring’s A to Z

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Ka

Small and amusing Ford that seems to have become less of both since the first generation. Conversationally confusing name might be why Ford people refer to it as the ‘Kay-ay’.

Kamm tail

Automotive design feature in which the rear of the car slopes downwards to an abrupt cut-off, creating a wake region that allows air to mimic the smooth passage over a gently tapering shape without adding extra length to the car. Named after German aerodynamicist Dr Kamm, though disappointingly not after his first name which was Wunibald.

Keeper

A car which you have no intention of selling. Also what you are the ‘registered’ version of according to the V5.

Kerb

Stone edging between a road and pavement. By extension, the dismaying act of accidentally bringing such a thing into contact with a car’s wheel.

Kerb weight

The mass of a car filled with all fluids including a 90 per cent full fuel tank (plus, if you use the EU definition, 75kg for an occupant and luggage).

Kevlar

Heat-resistant para-aramid synthetic fibre, notable for its high strength-toweight ratio that has made it a useful material for builders of racing cars and high-performance road cars. The Ferrari F40, for example. Technically, it’s Kevlar® because it was created by, and remains the property of, DuPont. Which writes its name as DuPont™. So that’s Kevlar® by DuPont™. Got it?

Keyless

Convenient car entry/starting system in which a small fob transmits a lowfrequency signal that is detected by a receiver in the car when it’s in close proximity, permitting the doors to unlock Top: A Kamm tail, as revived by Mercedes-Benz for the design of its Concept IAA for the 2015 Frankfurt motor show. Above: A ‘keyless’ key fob

This page, clockwise from right: Lift-off oversteer, 106 Rallye-style; Le Mans; a kit car; and laser headlights

Lag

and the ignition to engage. Not strictly ‘keyless’ since in most cases there’s still an old-fashioned metal key hidden inside the fob in case it all goes to cock.

An undesirable thing done by turbos and video calls.

Lambda sensor

Kickdown

To prompt an automatic transmission to engage a lower gear by fully depressing the accelerator. Or these days you could, y’know, think ahead and try using the paddles.

Kill

What helmswrights do to the traction control.

Kinematics

The study of the motion of objects. In car suspension terms, those objects would be the wheels relative to the body.

Kinetic

Energy associated with the movement of objects. Also a label given by Ford to the design style they used after New Edge and before the full Aston-grille-rip-off era.

Kit car

Home-made, self-assembly car which could be excellent, such as a Caterham Seven, or more like someone’s 1970s drug experiences rendered in ill-fitting glassfibre and dropped onto the chassis of a Mk2 Escort.

Knock sensor

Piezoelectric element mounted on an engine which transmits a current and thereby permits the engine management system to adjust the ignition timing in the event that it detects the presence of a small village in Ireland.

Knuckly

What the gearshift in old BMWs feels like.

L-plate

Flexible, laminated and inadequately magnetised warning square, the primary purpose of which is to warn other motorists that the driver has simply no idea how far away the kerb is.

Ladder chassis

Strong, durable but ultimately crude car construction method, very popular on pickup trucks to this day and American saloon cars until weirdly recently.

Another word for the oxygen sensor that monitors a car’s emissions and feeds back to the ECU so that the fuel/air mixture can be adjusted to optimise the operation of the catalytic convertor. Pioneered by Volvo, who bragged about it with grille badges in the ’80s.

Laminated

The one thing in common between windscreens and in-store copies of the Argos catalogue.

Lanes

Delineated sections of a major road, the far right and far left examples of which can be referred to as the ‘fast lane’ and ‘slow lane’ if you want to annoy a police officer.

Lane discipline

The practice of keeping to the left-most lane possible unless passing slowermoving traffic (obsolete).

Lap

To complete one full circuit of a racetrack.

Also, a kind of old-fashioned seat belt that seems designed only to make you headbutt something. www.

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Left-foot braking

Advanced technique used to manage weight transfer during high-speed driving (experienced user) or to stand your mum’s Polo on its nose (novice).

Left hooker

Casual way to refer to a left-hand drive car. Also the basis of a lorry driver joke that once got Jeremy Clarkson into a load of trouble.

Le Mans

Laser

A device that creates a narrow but powerful beam of light, as used in the headlights of some cars. Also, a model of Ford Capri that did not have this type of headlight.

Late braking

The act of summoning up speed reduction at the very last millisecond possible, ideally without then slithering off into a gravel trap/field.

Lateral

From the side. A word to describe cornering G-forces or the thought processes of the people who designed the Fiat Multipla.

Launch control

Electronic system in which engine, gearbox, traction control and sometimes even suspension are optimised to permit the fastest possible take-off from rest during the two times you try it (once on your own, once to show off to a mate) before you have horrible pangs about the state of your driveshafts and never bother with it again.

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Lay-by

A roadside pull-in permitting the weary driver to rest, browse a collection of single shoes, or simply sit there for long enough to look sinister.

Leadsledding

Car customising technique in which all of the seams and joints on a car’s body are smoothed away using lead loading to achieve a very smooth appearance. Sort of what production cars started to look like in the ’90s.

Leaf spring

Simple suspension system rarely seen on modern cars (except in fancy transverse applications, as on Volvos and Corvettes) and much sneered at for being crude, though it’s also strong, provides good axle location without complexity, and can take huge loads, making it ideal for commercial vehicles.

You wouldn’t want it on your Ferrari SF90 Stradale, mind you.

City in north-western France, capital of the Sarthe department and part of the Pays de la Loire region. A Roman city, as evinced by the amphitheatre and city walls, both still visible today, it was later the site of 11th-century conflicts between the Counts of Anjou and the Dukes of Normandy, the latter claiming victory, only to be expelled by a citizens’ revolt. In the 13th century the city came under French control, and was invaded by the English during the Hundred Years War before, in 1562, being sacked by Huguenots. In 1793 the city was the site of the infamous Battle of Le Mans in which opponents of the revolution, the Vendeéns, clashed with Republican troops, suffering for their lack of organisation and poor tactics, resulting in heavy casualties. A second Battle of Le Mans took place in 1871 during the Franco-Prussian war when the Germans, having captured French armies at Sedan and Metz and This page, clockwise from above left: A left hooker; a lap being completed; and L-plates

besieged Paris, defeated French forces around the city to vanquish French resistance in the west of the country. Le Mans was a key site in the Second World War, being captured by the Germans in 1940 and held until, as part of the Battle of Normandy in 1944, the Allies retook the city. In 1974 Le Mans became the twin town of Bolton in the UK. It was later twinned with Rostov-on-Don in Russia, Haouza in western Sahara, and Volos in Greece, and in 1989 opened the Palais des congrès et de la culture du Mans, which hosts major cultural and entertainment events as well as conferences and galas, boasting five auditoriums ranging in size from 100 to 1400 seats, as well as a large underground car park. Le Mans also sometimes has a car race.

License plate

1. What Americans call a number plate because it’s paid for and effectively licenses your car for legal use on the public road.

2. What British people call a number plate if they’ve watched too many Fast & Furious films.

Lift

Undesirable trait in which a car, by dint of being aerofoil shaped, begins to get lifted off the road by the air rushing around it, ultimately leading to ‘a Dumbreck’.

Lift-off oversteer

Handling characteristic in which the weight transfer brought on by closing the throttle during cornering reduces the load on the rear tyres, causing the car to turn more tightly into the bend in a manner

that is amusing/terrifying (delete as applicable).

with those phones inside little orange boxes.

Lightness

Lock

What Colin Chapman wanted his engineers to ‘add’. Although given his enthusiasm for cigarette sponsorship, he might have said ‘lighters’.

Limited edition

Title usually applied to a lukewarm hatchback with some extra trimmings that is ‘limited’ to ‘just’ 10,000 examples.

Although you could apply the same appellation to, say, the Cizeta‑Moroder V16T.

Limited-slip differential

Part of a car’s drivetrain that splits power between the wheels and allows them to turn at different speeds but, in this case, restricts the amount by which those speeds can vary to the benefit of cornering since the unloaded inside wheel cannot spin away power wastefully. Also permits big skids.

Live axle

A beam axle on the driven wheels of a car, regarded as cheap and crude, hence it fell out of favour on European sports cars in the ’70s and the Ford Mustang in 2015.

Location marker

Enigmatic signs seen on English motorways since 2003 to enable stranded motorists to give their position to emergency services in a mobile phone age where no one bothers

1. The amount by which steering can turn away from the straight-ahead.

2. What non-ABS brakes do if you stand on them too firmly.

3. What you always worry you haven’t done to your car.

Longitudinal

Word used to describe an engine mounted lengthways in a car, as is typical in rearwheel drive cars (and many Audis).

Louvres

Succession of slats covering an air intake, quite fashionable in the ’80s. Hence the Ferrari Testarossa.

Low profile

A tyre with an aspect ratio of less than 50.

Once a novelty, now commonplace (to the chagrin of ride-quality enthusiasts).

Lump

Unflattering way of referring to an engine.

It’s just been too busy to get to the gym recently, OK? L Clockwise from top left: A longitudinally mounted engine; a limited-slip differential; launch control (if you dare); and louvres, Testarossa-style

D E A D O N A R R I VA L WORDS by RICHARD PORTER

DOA: Honda NSX V10 Just one year after it was first spotted testing at the Nürburgring, Honda’s frontengined V10 replacement for the original NSX was dead in the water ONDA NSXs ARE LIKE BUSES. IF ONE’S just gone, you’re in for a long wait until the next. But the gap wasn’t meant to be the yawning 11 years between the demise of the original and the arrival of the hybrid version we know today.

When the first-generation car ceased production in 2005, Honda was making plans for a replacement, to debut in 2010. The first tantalising signs of this project came in 2007 when a curiously modified S2000 was spotted lapping the Nürburgring. Longer and wider than the donor car that had been spatchcocked to make it, this engineering mule featured re-angled screen pillars, a crudely applied fixed roof, stacked quad exhausts, and a set of British number plates that, according to the DVLA, identified it as a ‘Honda Unknown’.

The real giveaway, however, was in its stated engine capacity of 5000cc. In fact, gossip said the second-generation NSX was to be even more muscular than that, running a 5.5-litre V10 mounted at the front, breaking from its forebear’s mid-engined layout. Rumour had power at somewhere around 550bhp, and this chunky amount of grunt was fed through a double-clutch gearbox and four-wheel drive.

On the basis of the spec sheet, this had the potential to be Honda’s LFA, but with more

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grip and snappier shifts.

By 2008 the mutant S2000 had been superseded by visually representative prototypes, with styling based on that of the 2007 Acura Advanced Sports Car Concept (below). Dressed in zebra camouflage wrap, these became regular sights at the Ring, casually banging in GT-R-challenging sub-7min 40sec lap times.

Unfortunately, while the V10 prototypes kept thundering through the Grüne Hölle, the world’s economies were going through a hell of their own and, like all large corporations, Honda began to feel the pinch, posting an 81 per cent drop in profits. In no mood to press on with non-essential projects, Honda CEO Takeo Fukui used his year-end speech in 2008 to announce the V10 NSX would be culled, along with the company’s Formula 1 programme. A V8-

powered, rear-wheel-drive large-car platform was also scrubbed from the product plan.

The death of the NSX V10 might sound like cause for regret, but Takanobu Ito, the man who replaced Fukui as CEO in 2009, was less rueful.

Years after the project died he spoke openly about its demise, stating that an NSX should be ‘clever, with a focus on dynamic development’ as if to imply that the front-engined version had neither of these qualities. He also admitted that killing the car, which happened while he was senior managing director, caused such an angry reaction from engineers that in the aftermath of its cancellation he was ominously warned not to visit the R&D labs.

All was not completely lost from the V10 NSX project, however, since work completed on the racing version was recycled to make the HSV-010 (above left), an entrant for the Japanese Super GT series running a 3.4-litre V8 and rear-wheel drive, as demanded by the series’ regulations. Normally, racers in this championship had to be based on production cars, but Honda ducked this edict by claiming the HSV was derived from a production-ready design, thereby highlighting how close the V10-powered road car had been to going on sale. As it was, the world wouldn’t be able to buy a new NSX until 2016.

NEXT MONTH

PORSCHE 911 TURBO 2020 992 Turbo S meets 1975 930 Turbo

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

WORDS by SIRISH CHANDRAN

Fiat Palio S10 Bearing Sachin Tendulkar’s signature, powered by the 1.6 engine, striking in this distinctive shade of yellow, the Palio S10 was the most desirable hatch at the turn of the last decade HERE’S WHERE I STARTED MY career as a motoring journalist. Twenty years ago, two weeks into my internship, I was bussed down to the brand-spankingnew industrial township of Ranjangaon, outside of Pune, for the inauguration of Fiat’s massive, greenfield, manufacturing facility. The assembly lines for the Project 178 ‘world cars’ were still to be shifted from the old plant in Kurla but the giant sheds were up and the technical training facility had started operations. Knowing no better I wrote glowing things, along the lines of watch out Maruti/Hyundai/ Daewoo (those were the days!) and, for a while, it looked like I’d nailed it.

This facelift to the Palio launched at the end of 2001 really did take off. Among the familiar Zens and awkward Santros and WagonRs, the Palio looked fantastic. Its ride and handling was a generation ahead of its rivals. In the GTX there was a 16-valve, 100 horsepower, 1.6-litre engine that made it the hot hatch of its day. And it ran

on beautiful 14-inch alloys. Only the City VTEC was more powerful; only the City had 14-inch alloys back then. The buzz was nuts. 1100 cars were sold in the first two days, a record of sorts. In a year it rocketed Fiat India’s sales by 374 per cent. Sachin Tendulkar was signed up, his signature plastered on the flanks of this S10, and in return Michael Schumacher handed him the keys to a Ferrari. Everybody was happy, even the government waived the duties on the 360 Modena.

And then sales went off the cliff. The after-sales experience was miserable.

Italian quality was never (and still ain’t) as good as the Japanese. And then came the fuel efficiency nightmare. The Palio was a heavy, robust, safe car and was never going to deliver Suzuki-levels of efficiency. But who was going to explain that to mileageobsessed buyers? Fiat addressed that by… recalibrating the fuel gauge, claiming the needle was dropping faster than it should!

Sales never recovered and it was only a decade later, when real estate prices in Mumbai became far too juicy to ignore, that the Kurla land was sold off and manufacturing moved to Ranjangaon.

By then Fiat and Tata Motors had started selling each other’s cars from the same showroom and while that experiment was always doomed to failure, the manufacturing partnership has endured.

The Ranjangaon facility is now an equal joint venture between FCA and Tata Motors making (and exporting to all RHD markets) the Jeep Compass, Tata Nexon and churning out the 2.0-litre Multijet II diesel for the Compass, Harrier and Hector.

And as for Fiat, apart from the signage on that factory, the name has disappeared from our shores. L

Car courtesy: Kedar Bendre

IN THE GTX THERE WAS A 16-VALVE, 100 HORSEPOWER, 1.6-LITRE ENGINE THAT MADE IT THE HOT HATCH OF ITS DAY

*This is not a page for vintage cars. We will drive modern classics, made in India, and we’re going to apply the only sensible filter we can think of — to drive cars that came with seat belts.

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