On the Set of TopGear Series 24!

On the Set of TopGear Series 24!

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I think this is the right studio...

I worked out recently that I have been watching BBC Two's pokey motoring show for a full twenty years. Twenty! I'm only twenty-five years old, for crying out loud... and yet, after they rebooted and reformatted the show in 2002 to take place in a large hangar situated at former RCAF airbase south of Guildford, I never got tickets to be in the audience as messrs Clarkson, Hammond and May called each other names and told each other that Alfa Romeos are brilliant (but not as brilliant as something Jeremy's just thought of). I did apply once, but by that time the waiting list was allegedly as long as eighteen years and frankly it wasn't happening...

However, after a fracas, a shaky second reboot in 2016 and a year to figure itself out properly, TopGear is ready for what it calls series twenty-four (but which I consider to be phase three, series two) and recently sent out an open invitation online to apply for free tickets to appear in the audience for the first two episodes, airing this Sunday and next at 8pm. I was quick enough to jump at the latest chance and... I got tickets! Finally! Sure I wouldn't get to meet The Tall One now that he's migrated to the internet, but damn it all TopGear is TopGear! I'd applied for two tickets for episode one, but unfortunately my plus-one had a doctor's appointment in the end and I left it until it was too short-notice to get anyone else to join me. Still, I'd have more freedom to wander about on my own and could make the day longer by staying for the recently added companion show, Extra Gear.

Getting to Dunsfold Aerodrome from my house is actually very easy: drive to Guildford and turn right. Then, following the A281 south you eventually reach Alfold Crossways, a junction that's on a left-hand curve at which point you turn right and right again onto a parallel road, then immediately turn left (I imagine if James May had this described to him he would've ended up doing a U-turn and going back to Guildford... but it's easier to understand when you're there looking at it). Then go straight-on at the next corner and cruise past the Three Compasses pub. In mid-morning on a Wednesday after the commuters had gone to work, it took about an hour or so. Mostly because I didn't get lost - in fairness I've actually been here before for charity events.

You're checked three or four times for your credentials between Compass Gate and the audience holding area, which is essentially a slab of concrete parallel with the airfield's perimeter road and accessed via a very neat crossroads filled with seemingly unnecessary traffic lights. Once directed to a space, you find yourself facing the studio building(s) from across the airfield. What a tease!

Oh, and there was a food truck there. I had a banana with my burger and this seemed to be novel idea to onlookers.

I guess it's a bit like having my bacon-cheeseburger with a diet coke, but in food form

We were all given a TopGear quiz to fill in and submit, featuring questions that are even hard when you have a black belt in Google-fu. How am I supposed to know which hangar the new series is filmed in unless I work here?!

Wholesome meal over, it was time to wait around in windy drizzle... for about an hour longer than I'd anticipated. After tactically standing so that only half of me was getting soggy for quite a while, watching something red lapping the track from afar (possibly an Alfa Giulia QV or more likely a Toyota GT86 I'll bring up again later), we were then told that they were filming something and were having a delay, so despite the tickets saying "doors open at 1:00pm and close at 1:30," it wasn't until nearly 2:30 that we boarded some buses and were driven along the perimeter road to those buildings which were previously far away.

Oh the time we spent staring at those buses......

Then we had some more queuing to do, just to reassure those who came from a foreign country to be here that this is definitely Britain (also it was still drizzling, so I'm glad I wore a hat but regret not getting a clear-bin-bag "poncho").
We were told to leave our phones in the car and not take photos, so any images you see from here on in are actually startlingly accurate artist's impressions made using various media and a photographic memory. Honest...

Take, for example, this image of a blue Suzuki Whizzkid sitting right outside the studio, that was full of the sort of clobber you'd expect of a car that'd been sitting in somebody's garage for years rather than outside a TV studio. I love how the artist got the texturing on the metal bars so detailed in this image! Remarkable handiwork there.

Finally, after more wristband checking, we were allowed to be herded in groups to and through the studio doors. Here is a realistic digital painting of that, featuring the backs of people's heads:

Such realism!

Having seen old TopGear on telly so many times over, I was immediately struck by the size of the newly-restyled studio... or rather the apparent lack of size. I always got the impression it was filmed in the group of three hangars near the exit of Gambon Corner, but this single unit (hangar 86, remember that for the quiz if you ever go yourself) a few feet down from the start/finish line is visibly cosier. Perhaps the loss of its long-serving stars has forced them to relocate across to here for a smaller audience, or perhaps it's "due to the unique way the BBC is funded." I don't know the explanation. Nevertheless, a smaller audience means you're more likely to appear on screen... but being self-conscious at the best of times I never tried to be right at the front, just somewhere that I could see the big screen and hopefully the presenters' heads.

Initially, I stood next to something very shapely indeed: a Rimac Concept_One that I have geeked out about elsewhere on this blog in the past.

Ah yes, the artist who perfectly recreated these scenes from memory was a bit nervous about using their special technique to mentally record an image in their minds so early in the day, so, er, the composition isn't brilliant. Don't worry, things get better in this regard. Anyway, they didn't actually review or lap the all-electric Croatian supercar, instead choosing for Rory Reid to walk around it and poke bits of it while discussing its speed and range with a confused Matt LeBlanc and a cynical Chris Harris... and the star guest. I'll get to him in a mo...

...because before "the talent" showed up, the audience was informed (briefly) and entertained (frequently) by kiwi comedian Jarred Christmas while the production team scurried around doing Many Important Things to set up the equipment. At this point I was even happier not to be near the front as he went around fishing for material by asking audience members about themselves - I'm happy just to laugh, thanks! He actually stuck around throughout the recording of the show to fill in long gaps between takes and present something akin to a "half-time show" during the break in filming, when they gave out prizes to quiz winners and he continued his day-long quest to find the ultimate cheese joke. You wouldn't brie-lieve some of them...

Once everyone was into the studio, the crew sprayed more white onto the white mats beneath the cars and took away the black fences around them before instructing us NOT to stand on said white mats. The man tasked with directing the audience then took charge and gave us a tutorial in how to be an audience - how loud to cheer and applaud, how to applaud without cheering, when to cheer and/or applaud in the opening scene - after which everything became professionally lit and we gave, on cue, both cheers and applause to the three presenters as they strode in near the hangar door and walked to the opposite end to find their newly redesigned sofas.

Matt LeBlanc (I was in the same room as Joey!!) thanked us for turning up and wished us well. Then it was time to open the show once and for all. The camera rigs were moved into position and I couldn't help noticing the bag of crisps balanced on one of the circular lower handles. A proud TopGear tradition from the Wilman era was prodigious consumption of crisps and that remains alive and well among the production team. We heard the start and end of the now famous remix of Jessica originally by the Allman Brothers Band, then gave riotous cheer with applause as the stars introduced the show and series, now standing centrally in the studio as a trio with the camera in a corridor formed by us, as they said their hellos and linked into the series preview montage. This actually happened two or three times thanks to a forgotten line here or there. I would eventually learn to get used to this aspect of filming a television show.

After the montage above, they walked towards a car on the opposite side of the studio to me: a resplendent Ferrari LaFerrari in pearlescent white with metallic blue contrasting roof. This was Harris's link into his film testing the Ferrari FXX K, a track-only unregulated version of LaFezza. After some exemplary work explaining and showcasing the sonorous thousand-horsepower training tool around Daytona Speedway's endurance route, we applauded (and possibly cheered). Some further discussion of the car's quirks occurred, after which they welcomed on this week's Star in a Reasonably [REDACTED] Car, James McAvoy. What, already? After one film? That's unusual.
It turns out that this element of the show has been overhauled. Again. Mercifully, last year's format of having two guests painfully irrelevant to each other sitting down and having their past cars compared via an audience shouting contest has been completely axed. Instead, the singular guest first appears where the 'news' segment of the show would previously have been and initial discussions with them happen then... but the lap was saved for later.

Instead, after comparing his Audi RS3 to the Millennium Falcon [an understeering one, Harris asserts] and mentioning a couple of things I remember him saying the previous time he was on the show... we had to do this segment again. I guess the director is a perfectionist. We even had to welcome him onto the stage a second time. While the camera squad moved their things around and people whispered into their headpieces to unseen overlords between takes, the presenters and Mr. McAvoy chatted to each other, which we could hear. They talked about his bikes some more (Matt LeBlanc is a keen biker too) and some ideas of how to deal with the issue of them being stolen. The two professional actors also talked about their current projects (Episodes has one more series, if I've remembered correctly... or it's over... or soon to be... OK I haven't remembered correctly).

Oh! I almost forgot. They did introduce the Car Of Reasonableness during this segment of the show. It's the red thing in the picture below - drawn with a thousand crayons, from memory of course.

(image recorded after TG was finished)

This series, the car is not reasonably priced... instead, it is reasonably fast; a brand new Toyota GT86 with much of the interior trim removed and a basic rollcage fitted for health and safety reasons. Somehow the BBC have allowed Chris Harris to teach expensive celebrities how to fling a 200-horsepower rear-wheel-drive sports car around the test track! Apparently it took some time to figure out how much electronic stability assistance to leave on, among other issues, but even though there was some ESP function, we still saw a few clips of James McAvoy half-spinning at quite high speed through the tyres and at the first couple of corners, much to the amusing (and uncensored) terror of passenger Harris. I imagine this will happen every episode. Still, beats a Vauxhall Astra TechLine!

Before moving onto the next film, the presenters talked about which upcoming cars they were looking forward to this year. Technology fan Rory Reid fancies the Rimac I was standing near, so he and McAvoy walked over to it to talk about how fast and clever it is. The car's TVR-esque feature of having a button under the mirror to open the door was a highlight to the TG guys, with Rory asking guest James to try opening the car without instructions (hey remember when Jeremy did that with a Tuscan II in 2005?). Predictably, Rory had to step in and do it for him. This worked the first time and they checked out the interior... but a fluffed line or misplaced camera meant they had to re-shoot it... and the door never worked again. Each time Rory reached for the button, the door stayed resolutely shut, to everyone's amusement. They gave him the key, he tested it successfully before they returned to their seats to repeat the short walk-and-talk towards the car... and when it mattered, the door didn't open. They eventually abandoned this idea, sat back down again - "Fucking door!" [laughter] - and moved on. I'm interested to see what the final edit of that will be like!*

The thing to which they moved on was the cheap car challenge requiring cars which had done more than 480,000 miles - or as they put it, "have been to the Moon and back." This was to demonstrate that you needn't give up on your car after 60,000 miles or two years or however long most people own a car. At first I was staggered to see that the odometer on Matt's E-Class began with an '8' only to work out that it was in kilometres, not miles. This is because it came from Germany, unlike the London Taxi and Volvo V70 used by Rory and Chris respectively. A familiar format with fresh faces, this was actually a very enjoyable piece, but an extra dimension when watching in the actual studio is that the audience - who aren't recorded during these films, of course - reacted like, well, an audience. So when something funny happened, the whole room laughed anyway. When the winner of the inevitable race appeared from the final corner, there was cheering (not to mention upstanding outrage from the shorter of the two losers in the darkened studio as they watched with us!). You won't hear any of this under the footage at 8pm, but we were fully engaged with what we were watching. I have never experienced TopGear like this before and it felt special. The enthusiasm of others was contagious and it wasn't embarrassing to react loudly, like it might be at home. It was like being at a gig.

Once the first half of this film concluded, it was time for a break and some fresh air, during which I made a beeline for the nice lady handing out wristbands for Extra Gear and got the last one she had. There was still no opportunity to sit down, especially as it was still wet outside, but hey, at least there was complementary tea, coffee and biscuits. I plumped for the latter two.

Said refreshments were served in another hangar, opposite the studio and roughly half the length. I couldn't help but notice some rather tasty cars behind a fence in this building, including [breathe] an Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio Verde, and Aston Martin DB11 and a Volvo V60 Polestar, not to mention a backup GT86 "reasonably fast car" and some others I can't remember. The Alfa and Aston appeared in the series preview, which makes me think they will be starring in episode two (which was filmed four days ago, so I can probably get away with telling you this). The Volvo will appear in Extra Gear later today.

I decided to get a change of scenery for the second half of the show, so I stood on the left-hand side of the studio instead, again next to a car but with a proper view of the big screen (there is one on each side, about a storey up in the air, flanked by '80s supercars possibly belonging to Harry Metcalfe, whom I spotted on the phone in the corner at this point).

Jarred Christmas reappeared as we filed back in and everyone got ready for the second half. As well as asking us for more cheese jokes (the Camembert/"come on, bear" joke took several attempts), he found a new game where he sang one line of a pop song and hoped an unsuspecting victim would sing the next line. Some were better than others. I continued to keep a low profile, or as much of one as you can when standing an inch away from a pearlescent white Ferrari.

Here is a terribly composed portrait of said LaFerrari, done in pencils this time

I have to say, I don't normally like white on cars, but the way the pearlescent finish softly highlights the surfaces on this hyper-hybrid really works in person. It looked stunning. I spent of lot of the waiting time just looking at as much of it as possible. I'll probably never stand this close to one again. Fun fact: it was imported by Ferrari Japan. I don't know why this is, given that they sold them in the UK...

Anyway, we then got to watch James McAvoy's timed lap, which was certainly a bit lairy in wet conditions. We then had four or five goes at putting his lap time on the board (including all the talking post-lap) and cheering him goodbye. Sometimes it was a presenter tying their tongue in a knot, one time Rory stood up randomly for no reason, one time it was a mystery. I think it was after this that they re-shot some of the conversation about the Rimac, several times, just looking at Matt's face and Chris's face separately as they repeated what they said about it (Matt questioned its top speed, range and whether they're both possible simultaneously, Chris rubbished the whole idea of electric supercars saying the companies just make stuff up about a prototype and nobody buys one).

Television is hard.

After that, we watched the final part of the high-mileage cars film (during which I spotted a producer or somebody sitting next to Chris discussing what they were seeing), with a beautiful closing scene of the rocket launch to which they'd been racing. Personally I very much enjoyed this Kazakhstani adventure of theirs, with purely natural banter between the presenters and little-to-no manufactured action. An un-forced show for car enthusiasts. Thank goodness! Then there were three or four attempts to tell you what's happening next week, including three or four rounds of applause with cheering from us (always excellently delivered, of course).

Overall, I had a feeling that I'd just seen a good episode of TopGear. It wasn't a show I'd have to be defensive about and unlike the first episode of "series 23" last year none of it made me cringe... which is always nice. I feel optimistic about this series being a genuine alternative not only to The Grand Tour, but also to just watching old repeats on Dave, which is to say that, hype aside, it'll be of the same quality as what we've known before. Maybe. There certainly won't be any "we'll just have to be patient and give them a chance" excuse-making like there was in 2016. I have also learned that it takes about three times longer to film a TV show than it does to broadcast it. Mind you, it's not like I get to be on set every week, so I'm not complaining! Just observing.

But now, it was time to hang around for a bit. Again. There's a lot of that when you're making a TV show.

Mercifully, I found some Formula 1 tyres to sit on this time. No, I have literally no idea why they were there. Other people quickly sat on the new sofas for a photo, but obviously I didn't have my phone because I'm not naughty. Here's an exact scale replica of part of the main set platform. I cut a circle of acrylic especially for this image.

You can also see the Tyres Of Mercy and two of the star cars above (also accurate scale models, obvs). Despite LaFerrari having an electric mode that works up to 5km/h to manoeuvre it around, the person who had to turn it around 180° into its position for Extra Gear didn't realise this, instead starting the 6.3 V12 engine with a silence-shattering whip-crack that settled quickly into a booming burble. They were then very careful with it, as anyone would be with somebody else's million-quid machine.

TG's companion show has also been refreshed for 2017, with its own new set design including an amphitheatre-style three-tier seating setup for the audience... and a new presenter! Rory and Chris are now the suppourting acts for WRC-loving comedian George Lewis, a stand-up act on the rise making his TV** debut.

**Can you call it a "TV" debut when it's exclusively online?

It was actually during filming for this show that I saw something to add to the optimism I mentioned above about the show's future: chemistry. This was always something fans of the previous trio were keen to rattle on about as a USP of the show that made it work. Chris and Rory were almost like two lads in the pub together.

My favourite moment of the day will probably go forever un-broadcasted; it was time to introduce the part of the show where Chris takes a car around the track and this week it was the Volvo V60 Polestar, in reference to the V70 he'd just left knackered in the main show. The final line of his paragraph to camera was to say that he was to take "this viking Labrador carrier" around the track to see what's what. A slip of the tongue caught him out as he said "viking Labrador corridor." No matter, he sat back down and George re-did his segue to Chris's part. Having walked and talked his way to the front of the Volvo again... "viking Labrador corridor." Walking back in dismay, he asked us the rhetorical question "'Corridor'?! Where is that coming from???" as he went to try again. It then happened a third time. Rory started laying into him about his abject failure to read an autocue and Chris rugby-tackled him in a manner similar to Nico Rosberg on Lewis Hamilton after the 2014 Bahrain Grand Prix, only these two landed carefully back on their bench before recomposing themselves and trying again. Fourth or fifth time lucky, Chris nails it once and once only... and we all hold on with palpable anticipation until the director makes clear that it's all OK and in the can... before we erupt into riotous applause like he's just done a back-flip through fire or something. He immediately turned round and showed Rory some particular fingers with great enthusiasm and triumph in his eyes!

After that it was back to the normal routine of having a couple of goes at professional content, although as they paused to set up for one re-take the two of them did argue about who failed the most to say their lines (Chris assured us that Rory's line was tiny and his was like War and Peace, so exaggeration is another TopGear tradition alive and well). I will say in his defence, though, that he does seem like a proper guy - sympathetic towards us and our long day's work and chatting to us between takes about the cars we could see, how LaFerrari looks miles better in person than in pictures (true), how the Testarossa set decoration looks cool too but if you ever look to buy one, check the welds; if they're actually of a good quality then it's been crashed and repaired, as Ferrari didn't really do quality control in the '80s. OH, and he complained the set's bench was still too high for him. I heard someone afterwards say that he's the one you'd most want to have a pint with and I'd concur, no disrespect to the other two of course (Rory hung around for selfies the longest). Plus of course, as the "continuity nightmare" bit in the main show attests, he is one of us: a true, nerdy petrolhead. As for new boy George, he made a fine referee as he balanced his presenting debut with sorting out Monkey and 'Rench on his left.

As for the format, Extra Gear no longer has a bonus guest on, which was always a confusing aspect of its first series, and nor does it have a bit where the presenters discuss cars â la "The News." Instead it essentially focuses on its main purpose to take you behind the scenes and show a bit of bonus content. Both shows, then, have been tidied up nicely compared to last year and will make for enjoyable viewing over the remaining six weeks of take two of the third era of the greatest car show...... In The World.

I'm glad I was well and truly there to see it.

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An angle of the studio you'll never see on TV, sketched while sitting on a Tyre Of Mercy

*P.S. This has taken me so long to [stop procrastinating and] write, that I have now seen the broadcast...

So after watching the episode on BBC Two, I see that they actually just cut the entire Rimac section out altogether, meaning the only part of the main show where you might have seen me - especially as standing behind LaFerrari meant I was always out of shot for the second half - wasn't actually aired. Thank goodness I took so many "photos" of it, LOL... Also, at the end of the FXX K film they were standing next to an actual FXX K in the broadcast, which was NOT in the studio the week I was there! The conversation about being invited to buy one was had sitting on the sofas during the day the rest of this episode was filmed. They must have found one available later and made time during filming for episode two to add that bit in a few of days ago... a technique which would explain why episodes are, it turns out, filmed eleven days in advance, not just four.

I also see that Extra Gear went through quite a lot of editing, although detecting how carefully Harris said "viking Labrador carrier" in the final cut brought back some of the gleeful buzz from when I heard him say it the first [fifth] time. George's introductory piece to camera was shorter than in the studio - removing a section where he captioned some short clips HIGNFY-style - and I remembered that sometimes the first takes were more natural than the re-takes that were generally used. This is just part of TV - because the script isn't always word-for-word and the autocue just says "DISCUSS [subject]" for a time, the presenters just speak naturally to each other, then have to recreate that if a re-take is needed. It's only made me more glad to have been there to hear it all happen in real time, although I'll sometimes wonder what I'm missing from now on when I watch future episodes. Maybe I'll have to hope that repeat appearances in the audience are allowed... and that they'd even let me come back after all these, ahem, artist's impressions...

2016 (2017 MY) Nissan GT-R is Newer than a New iPhone

2016 (2017 MY) Nissan GT-R is Newer than a New iPhone

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2016/17 Nissan GT-R

Some cars favour evolution over revolution, and one car which has been championing this 911-like approach to improvement is the Nissan GT-R (ironic given it specifically targeted the 997 Turbo...). Revisions to suspension and software settings seem to arrive every year, with incremental horsepower hikes if we're lucky. Other than getting some fresh headlights two years ago, the only significant change to the outside came in 2011, with the "DBA-R35" replacing the "CBA-R35." That had extra whiskers and LEDs in the front bumper, brake vents in the rear ones and new wheels (plus a revised front chassis structure, hence the different model code). That year, power jumped from ~480 to 530hp and the transmission no longer ate itself alive after more than one use of warranty-voiding Launch Control. It would seem that Nissan needed a few years to recover from such huge changes as reshaping the chrome of the grille surround, because for 2012-14 it was back to gaining 10 horsepower here and shaving off 0.1 seconds to 62mph there, with asymmetrical suspension settings to account for the weight of a driver and eventually nicer leather on the seats. In 2014 we finally got a proper track-tuned NISMO version, which also meant the normal GT-R could now be tuned to be a bit less unforgiving over bumps. A bit...

In 2016, the R35-generation GT-R is getting on for 9 years old, and the interior in particular feels out of date compared to the new Type-991 911 Turbo and second-gen Audi R8 among others. A new wheel design and a software update isn't really cutting it anymore, even though Godzilla remains crushingly fast by all accounts, not least thanks to a staggering 2.8-second 0-62mph time at present and LC you can use without destroying the dual-clutch 'box or your warranty. Nevertheless, it's time for something properly new. Rumours suggest that the 'R36' GT-R will be a hybrid and arrive no earlier than 2018, so for the time being it's the R35 that's getting overhauled once again.

To the casual eye, it's the same. But actually it isn't. Thankfully, for anyone remotely familiar with R35s the differences are a damn sight easier to spot than those on a 911 facelift or a new iPhone 6SCEXWhatever. A lot of things from nose to tail just look more sculpted. The front bumper has new vertical grilles under the headlights to reference the 2005 GT-R PROTO concept car, as well as an enlarged and reshaped main grille with a non-reflective chrome "V-motion" blade standing proud of the usual plastic central bumper cover, while the bumper corners' leading edges flanking the headlights are more NISMO-like and there's a reshaped front spoiler with additional lower corner pieces in black. The side skirts were previously completely flat on the standard car, whereas now they bulge smoothly and dynamically to better guide the air around the wheels and the floor. The rear bumper again has thin vertical protrusions like the NISMO version, under which sit more artfully-shaped rear brake ducts behind the rear wheels, while there's a new silver insert resembling the one in the front grille turned upside down, plus the areas above the quad exhausts are indented horizontally and the area of black plastic reaches slightly higher to make the car look wider (we're told). The updated headlights with LED inserts appeared with the NISMO in 2014, along with the skinnier GT-R trim piece in front of the doors, but both details fit in much better with the new 2016/17 styling in these images. The creases along the bonnet are now little ridges, to better guide the air, and there is yet another new design for the 20" wheels, featuring skinny spokes spaced far apart. Finally, the new metallic orange paint colour is called Blaze Metallic, which sounds like some obscure EDM artist.

In summary, while the shape is certainly familiar, the details are enough to make it look like a new car again. Conversely, the interior is vastly different:

The door trims and seats look familiar, but the steering wheel, dashboard and centre console are all completely new. Nissan proudly state that the number of buttons and switches has been reduced from 27 to 11... although how many of them simply migrated to the steering wheel I don't know. Either way, the new touchscreen display is now a much more prominent feature, an inch bigger at 8" and newly incorporating navigation and audio controls alongside the usual array of performance measurements available. Hopefully it finally has DAB radio too. Appropriately for a car whose name is short for "Gran Turismo Racing," the performance data screens continue to be done by Polyphony Digital (no wonder the replacement is taking so long!), but drivers in real life will also want to know that the metal gear-shift paddles are now fixed to the wheel instead of the steering column, to better facilitate shifting while turning. The air conditioning vents have been relegated to below the new 'screen, which seems like an oddly low-down placement for them, to me at least. But then, any proper nerd knows that real-time boost pressure data is more important than fresh air! As well as your own fingers, the screen can be operated with a new control module by the driver's knee. I sincerely hope the carbon fibre centre console trim is genuine, or else it's as tacky as Inoue.

Importantly, there's more widespread use of Nappa leather and soft-touch finishes. The original R35 was a £55,000 car, but the outgoing 2014/15 model is now £78,000 basic and this major update isn't going to be any cheaper (prices unannounced for now). It can't afford to have dodgy plastics everywhere, especially if it's meant to be baiting 911 Turbos and McLarens. This car has never had a problem living up to the 'R' bit of its name, but the 'GT' element is being enhanced with a "smoother, less noisy" gearbox and interior Active Noise Cancellation technology to complement new sound deadening materials for the four occupants (yes, it still has back seats, which personal experience tells me are slightly less cramped than they look due to the long seat base - the real issue is headroom). The windscreen is made of 'acoustic glass' for even more quietness. Tech fans in some markets will revel in the ability to link their phone to the car and remotely operate the door locks, alarm and activate the vehicle tracker or even call the police if it's stolen.

Of course, this wouldn't be a GT-R update without a smidgen more power, so it's got that too. The venerable VR38DETT now makes 570PS (562bhp) and 469lb/ft, an increase of 20 horses and 3 torques. Of course, Nissan are notoriously conservative with their GT-R horsepower figures and have been since the R32 of 1989, so read that as "at least" 570 horsepower, courtesy of improved ignition timing control and higher boost from both turbos. The 0-60 time won't be any longer, but we haven't yet been told whether it's any shorter than 2.8 seconds. Similarly, Nissan haven't yet revealed if that clever sound deadening has increased the hefty 1740kg weight figure. If you voice these concerns in the vicinity of the new car then it can shout over you, thanks to a new titanium exhaust with Active Sound Enhancement valves that make it louder when the situation calls for it. We do know that the car maintains its 0.26Cd drag coefficient despite making slightly more front downforce. How much more? "This much." [holds up hands an arbitrary distance apart]

The other thing it needs is suspension tweaks. Not only does it have "new suspension," but the body structure is more rigid (it's a shame they didn't elaborate on either of these facts). The result is allegedly "the most comfortable GT-R to date" as well as "better stability through quick lateral transitions and higher overall cornering speed." So it's better at both GT and R, then.

The remaining details will be filled in over time, until the new-new-new GT-R goes on sale this summer and magazines test it against seven-figure hypercars to try finding a quick enough rival. Or the 991 Turbo S. Probably just the 991 Turbo S, to be honest.

Until then, watch this surprisingly intense video of a master engine builder assembling the 3.8L twin-turbo V6 all by himself.

Alternatively, if you're still having trouble identifying all the changes, then here are some comparison and detail shots:

Click To Enlarge

For the interior comparisons, the left one is the 2008-15 interior and right is the new one. 

Small point, but I think the newly applied lip around the edge of the outer tail lights is a subtle reference to the short-lived 1973 "KenMeri" Skyline 2000 GT-R.

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This was written for SmallBlog V8. Report if found elsewhere. [QEKslbz974vcPE6zKNwN]

911R = 500PS + 6MT x 991

911R = 500PS + 6MT x 991

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When Porsche released the type-991 generation of 911 GT3 with no option of a manual gearbox, the internet cried foul. "The GT3 supposed to be the driver's 911 and should thus champion continued use of the clutch pedal, we say! The dual-clutch transmission is too heavy and they're diluting the GT3 name and ethos! Why would a company want increased sales, anyway?!" That was before they even remembered the electric steering assist or spotted the new rear-wheel steering system. Meanwhile, customers merrily queued up to buy a 911 that revs to 9000rpm and goes about as fast as light travels. Well actually, it wasn't quite that simple - some actual GT3 customers also cried foul at the paddles behind the wheel, evidently telling Porsche they weren't going to buy the new one. Thing is, as well as broadening the car's appeal, Porsche needed to make the new GT3 better and more competent than the old 997 GT3 it replaced. The big semi-auto transmission cut out time shifting gear because that's time spent not accelerating. "The PDK allows you to gain a whole car length with every shift," said Porsche.

"We don't care," said a handful of customers, "we bought our cars for fun first and foremost."

Porsche appeased the enraged with the manual-only Cayman GT4, a car that borders on perfection were it not for overly long gear ratios and an engine that's only ever very good, never truly great. But the GT4 signified a very important shift for Porsche Motorsport; they're now having to differentiate between cars that are for ultimate performance and cars that are for ultimate driver engagement, as they are no longer entirely one and the same.

This brings us neatly to the latest addition to the Porsche Motorsport road car range, and the latest wet dream for all motoring journalists everywhere. Take the GT3, simplify and add rightness. Get the 911 R.

2016 Porsche 911R

First of all, the stripes. They're a direct reference to the 1967 Porsche 911R, a very limited-edition stripped-bare version of the 911 for racing and rallying. It set endurance records and wore black side stripes, while a BP-sponsored one added red or green over-the-top stripes like the ones you see here. On the face of it, though, it's hardly Porsche's greatest stripe job. I'd much rather remove the top stripes and just keep the side ones. Or replace the top ones with Martini stripes, which improve literally anything.
UPDATE: Their online configurator shows that you can actually have it with no stripes at all if you want. However, the body is only available in white or silver.

The reference isn't purely superficial though (like it is with, say, the 718 Boxster...). As well as borrowing the name and stripes, the new 911R uses the same engineering philosophy. The '67 car weighed a flyweight 800 kg thanks to the doors, bumpers, bonnet, engine cover and side/rear windows all being made of plastic. The interior featured almost nothing. It was just the raw essence of a 911. The same is... almost true in the new 2016 car. It starts out as a 911 GT3, then removes the rear wing, air conditioning, stereo, rear seats and a few other things. The exterior body panels are made of carbon fibre, the rear and side windows are plastic, while the roof is magnesium and the carbon-ceramic brakes are, amazingly, standard-fit when they're usually a £6250 option even on GT3s. The result is a car weighing 1370kg wet, which in a modern context is 50kg lighter than the allegedly-hardcore GT3 RS and 60kg under a normal GT3. This is partly due to the single most important feature of the entire car: a six-speed manual gearbox (not a 7-speed like the Carreras). This saves 20kg despite the added weight of a third pedal!
The old 911R had an uprated engine, too. So does the new one. It features the 4.0-litre, 500-horsepower engine from the RS, despite still having the slightly narrower rear tyres from the normal GT3. Need another sign that it's not all about hitting the numbers on a track?

As explained in a walkthrough video from evo magazine, the 911R retains the rear-steer system even though it adds around 5kg. This decision was not made to set faster lap times, but because it makes the car more agile on turn-in, which boss man Andreas Preuninger qualifies by asserting that agility is part of the fun of driving a sports car, and that "it felt like a truck without it!" The engine also uses a lightweight single-mass flywheel, which in turn saves 5kg, to improve engine response and give it a bit more "zing," the consequence of which is a snappier clutch off the line. Because it's Porsche's most powerful non-turbo engine other than the 918's V8, the 911R needs downforce... but Preuninger was firm that it must not have a rear wing and must have a completely clean profile to look purer and more classic. Instead, you might be able to spot a bigger diffuser with hanging fins spread across the rear apron, just below the central exhaust pipes. This, along with a Carrera's pop-up spoiler, allows for a stable lane-change on the autobahn even when you're closing in on the car's 201mph (323km/h) top speed - which incidentally is higher than the GT3 RS's 193mph thanks to lower drag. The wingless-ness also allows the car to look appropriately like a simplified GT3 to casual onlookers... if casual onlookers know exactly what a GT3 looks like.

Inside, there are more efforts for a neoclassical look. The carbon fibre bucket seats can be trimmed in brown leather with '60s style "Pepita" fabric centres, which is brilliantly odd when placed alongside cutting-edge carbon fibre trim pieces. Fabric door pulls replace plastic handles to denote a hardcore attitude. The steering wheel has a unique finish that's altogether more modern - the three-spoke metal frame is finished in satin black rather than the usual polished bare metal. As a statement of intent, there is a big glorious plastic hole in the middle of the dashboard where the air conditioning and stereo controls aren't. There's just a little shelf for your second pair of sunglasses instead. You can add the a/c and the TFT infotainment screen back in for free if you've completely missed the point of this car. I would've charged £2500 as a penalty if I was Porsche, but hey.

As mentioned above, there are no rear seats. This is not a 911 set up to be a grand tourer. It's a short-distance 911 for waking up before 6am on a Sunday and exploiting any empty back road you can find. Wind through the trees, drift through the hills, blast down the autobahn. Go home again and have breakfast, saving money on coffee because adrenaline beats caffeine by miles (per hour).

This one has the creature comforts added back in which makes it less good

Another obscure retro touch is the green-coloured numbering in the instrument cluster. There's a "make the exhaust louder" button, while the button marked SPORT is mostly there to add an automagic throttle blip function to your downshifts if you haven't learned to heel-toe by yourself yet. Thanks to the need to row your own, the 0-62 time is 3.7 seconds, almost half a second behind the be-paddled GT3 RS from whence the engine came. But numbers like that are not the focus here. The numbers to really get concerned about are these: Prices start at £136,901 and they will only build 991 examples of what is essentially the perfect driver's 911 from the water-cooled era. Unless the next GT3 is manual and naturally aspirated, it isn't going to get any better than this. This is peak 911. Road testers call every new version of the GT3 "the ultimate 911" and when they say it this time it might be the last time they actually mean it.

Still, if you do have that much money to spend on it (budget £150k to account for any optional extras), then you'll be pleased to know that a limited-run enthusiast's 911 is an absolutely bulletproof investment. Well, I suppose for it to be the perfect sports car the value needs to be able to rise whether you hoon the living daylights out of it or not. I can almost guarantee that a 911R won't drop below list price. Ever. Sad for the dreamers, a dream for the saddos who buy cars and lock them away as investments.

But maybe, just maybe, some of the 991 buyers will be actual car enthusiasts. Those GT3 customers who rejected the current paddles-only car might afford this - even though it's £5601 more than an RS - and take it to a track, not to set lap times on their Sport Chrono Pack but to savor those laps. To feel the car moving around. To learn the dying art of masterful clutch control. Better yet, don't spend all day at Silverstone, go and find some of the greatest driving roads in your home country, then in the one next to it, then in the next continent.

It's the ideal driver's car. Go and drive it.

Please?

Here is evo's video of two happy enthusiasts, columnist Henry Catchpole and Porsche Motorsport boss Andreas Preuninger, picking through more of the details and explaining why they're there. Let it enthuse you.


This was written for SmallBlog V8. Follow the blog on Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus!

Bugatti Chiron - The Last Great Dinosaur

Bugatti Chiron - The Last Great Dinosaur

New Car Supercars

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Hybridisation. Downsizing. Impending autonomy. The world of cars is changing dramatically, and fast. Everything from tiny eco cars to the height of performance dreams is being affected by seismic shifts in trends and motivations for both paying customers and manufacturers alike. Naturally aspirated V12s, manual gearboxes, all that stuff may well be gone within a decade or so of now. Even some of the great champions of high-performance engines like Koenigsegg, Ferrari and Porsche have now built hybrids with (semi-)automatic transmissions and electric-only driving modes. Top speed and 0-60 matter less, emissions and gadgetry matter more.

However, while some car manufacturers are succumbing to this sea change, others are raging against the dying of the light. One of those is Bugatti, who have just unveiled their new road car for the Geneva Motor Show to replace the almighty Veyron. It's called the Chiron, and dashboard aside, the only thing electric is the steering assistance. A hybrid system was deemed insufficient for this car. Like before, the engine is both huge and turbocharged in a display of engineering brute force. In fact, this could well be the last all-engine milestone in performance cars... ever?

Named after Monegasque racing driver Louis Chiron - who raced for Bugatti in the 1920s and '30s, won the 1931 French Grand Prix and still holds the record for the oldest man to race in F1 (at 55!) - Bugatti's latest car could easily be seen from the outside as an overhauled Veyron. The engine is the same layout and displacement, the proportions are the same, some of the interior looks similar and its aims in life are much the same too. However, we are reassured that it's not some plebian facelift. This is new-new. The leviathan 8.0-litre quad-turbo W16 engine has been completely redesigned, every part reconsidered and re-engineered to be better at whatever it need be better at. This has included such things as two-stage turbocharging with better turbines, improved charge cooling, 32 fuel injectors (two per cylinder), a titanium exhaust and carbon fibre air intake parts. Not to mention "the largest and highest-performance clutch ever fitted to a passenger car." The result of all this and much more is 1500PS (1487bhp) at 6700rpm and 1180lb/ft (1600NM) of torque. That's a 50% increase in power over the original Veyron from 2005 and also in with a shout of being the most powerful production car ever made. Only the Koenigsegg Regera matches it and that needs three electric motors helping its engine to do so. To make the delivery of this massive firepower a bit smoother, only two turbos are running when you pull away. The other two don't wake up until 3800rpm to generate maximum boost, the result of which is an "absolutely linear" power/torque delivery from 2000rpm upwards. The full 1600NM of torque is available from 2000-6000rpm. The rev counter goes up to 8000rpm with no red line. The speedometer goes up to 500km/h...

The top speed, however, doesn't go up to 500km/h (311mph). On the road, for safety and durability reasons, the top speed is limited to a nice and sensible... 420km/h, or 261mph. What speed it can do down the main straight at Ehra-Lessien on a clear day is yet to be found out, but Bugatti are once again targeting a new top speed record for production cars. That will have to be over 270mph at least to really put the matter to bed for a few years, ideally closer to 280mph. You might have guessed that this is no easy task, hence the somewhat sleeker body to cut through the air a mite better than the old jelly-mould Veyron. There are some comedy figures involved in getting this car to make such progress - the Chiron can pump over 60,000 litres of air and over 800 litres of water per minute through the engine!

The airflow is clever too. The shape is carefully refined to keep laminar air flow attached all the way along the sides of the car to the short kamm tail, there's the obligatory huge diffuser with active flaps front and rear, and then we get to the cooling. The headlights sit under a distinct eyebrow which also doubles as an air intake, just next to the innermost LED light cluster, used for brake cooling. The signature "Macaron" grille cools one of the nine radiators, while a small horizontal slot underneath it cools the front differential. The corner grilles below the headlights cool low-temperature radiators (and an "air condenser") while also hiding secondary brake ducts. The Veyron's iconic twin air scoops flanking the engine have been integrated into the sides for the Chiron. The section behind the side windows is a ram-air intake, while the main section below feeds an oil cooler on each side (more radiators!). A small vent in the side skirts draws air out of the front wheel arch to lower pressure and thus lift in that area. Huge vents in the tail do the same for the rear arches (although the smaller area above the tail-light bar is venting the oil cooler). There is still a retractable wing/airbrake doing things too, and when it's standing up an extra cooling vent for the engine and exhaust is revealed, presumably only needed when the car is working hard. The engine itself remains partially exposed, albeit underneath plastic covers again, to aid cooling and look awesome. It will also sound awesome - the sheer immensity of that thing means it still sounds like it's started an avalanche.

But you want performance figures, don't you? OK, then: 0-100km/h is done in under 2.5 seconds, 0-200km/h is done in under 6.5 seconds and 0-300km/h is done in a staggering 13.6 seconds. Quick doesn't describe it. The Chiron embarrasses the Veyron. Even the 1200PS Veyron SuperSport is a whole second less quick to 300km/h, while the original car is a whole 3.1 seconds off the new pace. The top speed is limited to 420km/h (261mph) in most driving modes, but in Handling Mode with more downforce generated, the top speed is lowered to 380km/h (236mph) to protect the tyres and/or suspension from greater forces. At its lowest the drag coefficient is 0.35, but with the airbrake fully up it's 0.59Cd. You still need a special "Speed Key" in a special slot before you can shoot for the top speed, because it makes doing so feel like more of an occasion. As it should!

Of course, if you can go fast then you need to stop fast as well. The front brakes have eight-piston (!) calipers, the rear six, letting the car stop from 100km/h in 31.3m, from 200km/h in 125m and from 300km/h in 275m. The central tub chassis is made of carbon fibre to save weight and Bugatti claims it has "LMP1 levels of torsional rigidity" at 50,000 NM-per-degree. Given that they're part of VW Group, which currently has two LMP1 teams in Porsche and Audi, I'd be inclined to believe them. Once again it needs specifically-developed Michelin tyres (285/30 R20 front, 355/25 R21 rear) to withstand the uniquely hellish punishment of a heavyweight car closing in on 300mph, but this time they've been designed to also be easier and cheaper to fit. What with the Veyron's tyres costing about as much as a Golf, that seems prudent...

Lightness is rightness, and despite the industrial-strength engineering in the powertrain, Bugatti chased rightness in the all-new chassis. As well as the tub, the entire body and even the airbag housing (the latter a world-first) is made of carbon fibre. The centre console of the interior is made of carbon fibre as well as other trim bits. In the show car, it's blue carbon fibre, which the the best carbon fibre. The result of all this is that the Chiron weighs... about 100kg more than a Veyron?! How is that even possible? It could have something to do with being roughly 3" longer, 2" taller and 1.5" wider than a Veyron, to create more interior space (and possibly more room for radiators). The wheelbase, however, is only 1mm longer.

The old car's weight stopped it setting a TopGear lap record, but evidently the heavy-duty approach works for these people. Keeping it all under control is an electronic centre diff which can send any amount of the power forwards or backwards, and a torque-vectoring rear axle which allegedly makes this beast "easy to drift." Versus what? A tectonic plate? The different driving modes include different ride heights for the new active air suspension, including a lift function to get onto ramps and over speed bumps.

Design-wise, it's certainly a decade of progress over the Veyron, which looked a little too VW from some angles. Dipping into Bugatti's history invariably brings about a somewhat Art Deco feel to the curves, with the "Bugatti Line" curving from the front bumper, along the side skirt and around the door to make the A-pillar being the most obvious highlight of the exterior. The eight square headlights reminded me to a certain extent of the controversial Alfa Romeo SZ and RZ, but other than that the nose is just as sharp as the Vision Gran Turismo concept from which this style truly spawned. The central crease running from nose to tail is a reference to the Type 57SC Atlantic, and the way it bisects the interior spaces is impressively dramatic for a production car. The crease also reaches out over the exposed engine in a similar way to the large fin on the V-GT concept, and looks cool whether it has an aerodynamic effect or not. One nice detail is the bone line behind the side glass, which carries on underneath the Bugatti Line to stretch back over the rear wheel arches. At the rear it looks a lot less chubby, and that one-bar tail light is like something straight out of Tron. The four central tailpipes contained in a strange dual trapezoid metal housing complete the tail, but I'm not sure it's quite what I would've done. Overall the shape is sleeker, sharper, cleverer, artier and yet there's enough left in the silhouette, proportions and haunches that it's identifiable as a new Bugatti. Job well done.

The interior attracts the same observations. Much like the Vision GT, the Bugatti Line is repeated between the seats and emphasized with a light strip ending in overhead switches, while there is much (blue!) carbon fibre doing many curvy things and some oh-so-elegant slimline air vents. There's a pleasing lack of huge touchscreen on the centre console, too. Instead there are some very cool knobs with screens inside them and auxiliary driving information is housed in the instrument cluster, controlled by wheel-mounted buttons. It's satisfyingly minimalist, modernising the old-school ways like the mechanicals do under the skin. Plus of course, as it's a Bugatti, the quality will be nigh-on unsurpassable. The stereo reflects that, featuring four tweeters with one-carat diamond membranes and "the world's first mid-range speaker with two separate membrane zones," whatever that means. It also has WLAN/Wi-Fi internet so you can record telemetry about the car when you drive it (and so Bugatti can track what you're doing with your car...) while the passenger tweets on their phone about how good the music sounds. Or where their spleen has been relocated.

But obviously the best thing about it is that you can also have THE ENTIRE OUTSIDE IN BLUE CARBON FIBRE so of course I want one a lot now.

Beats "blue steel" a million times

If only I was a billionaire. The average Veyron customer owned over 80 cars already(!), and the price of this one isn't going to attract the kind of person who only has 79 - Bugatti state the price in Europe as €2,400,000 after taxes. That's been translated to approximately £1,890,000 or $2,600,000 [US] by other websites. So basically, don't expect to see one parked outside Lidl. Or Lydden Hill.
Bugatti will build 500 and a third of them are already spoken for.

So it ticks all the Bugatti boxes. It's got a huge engine, Art Deco style, mad yet clean interior design and a bonkers high price which will probably rise in time. It also looks to be a proper successor to the "the Concorde of the road" by righting the aesthetic wrongs and turning the performance up to... 15, or something. The Chiron is one of the last bastions of high performance through purely mechanical engineering (if we ignore the active all-wheel-drive, driving modes and paddleshift DCT). A Toyota Prius would cower in fear at the mere sight of something so gratuitous, with such a no-fucks-given attitude towards ecomentalism. The Art Deco-ness is entirely appropriate for such a proud speed machine of such classic values.

...

The only thing is, Art Deco machinery was about powering us into a prosperous new age in the near future... but we've seen the near future already, remember? The previous article on this blog was about a car with over 1000 horsepower, 1180lb/ft of torque, mind-bending acceleration and technological marvels... and the Rimac Concept_One damn well doesn't have the equivalent of four Golf GTI engines booming away behind the seats.

In fact, let's update the comparison table from that post, shall we?

That 0-200km/h time everybody's raving about on Twitter is no better than that of an all-electric vehicle developed by a handful of people in Croatia. Not only does the Rimac burn no fuel, but it costs less than half as much money and will 62.5 times rarer. If you are worried about the environment, then using European mains electricity to charge the EV's batteries could give it the equivalent of around 89g/km of CO2 emissions. The Chiron is predicted to emit about 450g/km, which is in itself much lower than the Veyrons. The Rimac also weighs over 100kg less and will have much more adjustable handling thanks to its fully independent all-wheel-drive and torque-vectoring.

Really, what is the electric car missing? Heritage, noise and gear shifts... and that's pretty much it. Oh, and the top speed is a relatively feeble 221mph (355km/h), but honestly how often is that going to matter outside of a dick-measuring contest? Even an autobahn can't promise you enough road to get to that speed and you'd be irresponsible to try it there anyway.

Cars like the Bugatti don't make sense in 2016. It's irrelevant to everything. Ten years ago when the previous one appeared, this was emphatically not the case. The Veyron completely outclassed and out-hyped the Koenigsegg CCR so much that everyone forgets it was the Swedish car that beat the McLaren F1's top speed record first, not the Franco-German one. It was the undisputed king of supercars (or hypercars), and no number of marginal gains from some two-bit American shed projects managed to change that image in ten whole years. There is no guarantee the Chiron will have the same impact because, well, it's a sequel. It might be a really good one, but it'll need to get awfully close to the end of its 500km/h speedometer to make it count for anything.

It's huge, heavy, thirsty, outrageously expensive and relatively old fashioned in its style and philosophy. Yet, it is also mighty, unapologetic and brutally fast. It's new and clever now, but will very soon be seen as a dinosaur, possibly long before the end of its planned eight-year production run.

But you know what? Dinosaurs are fucking cool as hell. Let's be glad that Bugatti saw fit to give us one more before the electric asteroid pummels the surface of the automotive world into silent oblivion once and for all.



[Full press release and images here]

This article was written exclusively for SmallBlogV8. If you see it copied elsewhere then please report it.

All-Electric Croatian Creation Out-Accelerates Veyrons

All-Electric Croatian Creation Out-Accelerates Veyrons

New Car Supercars Videos

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2016 Rimac Concept_One

A few years ago, Mercedes-Benz came out with an all-electric version of the AMG SLS sports GT car. It had all-wheel-drive, true active torque-vectoring and a high-visibility paint job. Reviewers marveled at how big a difference it made to switch it into Sport mode, how much sharper and more aggressive it became, how docile it was in lesser modes, and so on. Sure it was expensive, but it also surprised a lot of people. Of course, you'd expect impressive engineering from one of the world's largest and most established car manufacturers in history, right? Well... what if I told you that the electric drive systems all came from a small start-up company in Croatia? Oh, and have you seen the astonishingly potent Koenigsegg Regera hybrid hypercar? The one with "no gears" in its transmission that has over 700 horsepower of electric drive to supplement its 5.0 twin-turbo V8, and which can do 0-250mph in 20 seconds? Koenigsegg do not mess around when it comes to engineering, and take pride in coming up with new innovations themselves... and yet, it's that same little technology company just outside Zagreb in Croatia which has also provided the batteries and relevant control electronics for the most powerful production car yet made. Or maybe you follow the Pikes Peak Hillclimb and wondered whose technology really powers Monster Tajima's 1340-horsepower "E-Runner" that outpaced every engine-powered car last year?

Finally, do you own a PS4 and the game Driveclub? Have you driven the electric Rimac Concept_One that can out-accelerate the McLaren P1 and LaFerrari? Yeah, I'm talking about those guys. That car is real, and it's going on sale this summer. If Rimac has just entered your life out of nowhere, let's go through some backstory...

In 2007, a 19-year-old Mate Rimac [Ma-té Ree-mack] was just out of university when he decided to buy a BMW E30 two years his senior and go racing with it. Unfortunately, the engine packed up. Fortunately, he had been studying "mechatronics" very successfully the year before - he wound up touring his native Croatia and then the world to win awards for his wearable keyboard/mouse replacement meant for future smart TVs - so he decided to have a crack at turning his old 3-Series into an electric car. Initially it was underwhelming and he was mocked for his "washing machine" which people joked might strike them with lighting, but through perseverance and eventually with help from an assembled team of experts, Mr. Rimac made his E30 into something of a monster. A "Green Monster," no less. It was overhauled and reinvented a total of five times, its ultimate iteration setting five Guinness world acceleration records in 2011 for electric vehicles over 1000kg. With a relatively modest 1150kg kerbweight and chucking 600 horsepower and 664lb/ft at the rear wheels, it could do 0-60 in 3.3 seconds, or travel up to 180km (112mi) on a charge.

Somewhere along the line, Rimac realised that there was so little of the original car left that he ought to try building one from scratch. A car designed specifically to be electric would be a better test bed for his technology, after all. By 2009 he had sold enough patents and got together enough investment money to found his own company for the task. A few months after the world-record run in 2011, the Concept_One first appeared at the Frankfurt Motor Show, to much interest. Since then, the weight has risen and fallen, the claimed torque output has dropped from "preposterous" to just "bloody hell that's a lot" and the top speed has slowly risen. There have even been a couple of development cars entering private hands, while one has served as the Formula E race director's course car. Finally, after five years of being repeatedly reinvented, the Concept_One has reached its ultimate iteration and will appear at the Geneva Motor Show next month as a finished road car.

It's quite something, too. Unlike a lot of small-time supercar companies who start with tried-and-tested parts to save money, everything from the batteries and motors down to the lights and interior switches is developed entirely in-house, within a single facility in Sveta Nedelja. Only the Brembo carbon-ceramic brakes, Michelin tyres and the wheels (possibly HRE) are brought in from external suppliers. This amount of 'vertical integration' allows them to keep a close eye on quality and develop everything in a more unified way.

Each wheel gets its own oil-cooled permanent magnet AC induction motor (fellow Croatian, Nikola Tesla invented the AC motor, of course), and each motor gets its own reduction gearbox in order to translate a spinning motor into a spinning wheel with more control and a different ratio. The front two motors use single-speed gearboxes, while the ones at the back get two-speed (automatic) dual-clutch affairs. The thing about electric motors is that they make their torque instantly, which is great for low-end shove but it means the power delivery drops off quite quickly once past a certain point. With an extra gear for each rear wheel, the car gets a second wind at somewhere above 80mph and continues accelerating like crazy when single-speed EVs would run out of puff.

"But does it really need four gearboxes?" you ask. It's all part of the company's Rimac All-Wheel Torque Vectoring (R-AWTV) system, in which each wheel is individually controlled 100 times per second to give the right amount of torque for what you're doing... and what you want to do; the system can be programmed to effectively give the car any kind of cornering behaviour you want, from mild understeer to powersliding lunatic, both through precisely measuring out the torque and by decelerating the wheel(s) electronically with negative torque to give faster-reacting traction/stability control than a conventional car's mechanical system ever could. As well as some factory pre-set modes (normal/track/drift/etc.), you can customise your own to match your driving style by adjusting things like default torque and brake force distribution. This isn't some puny "Sport Mode Button" that just sharpens throttle response and dampers, the system completely changes the way the car takes corners. An early version of it was in that electric AMG SLS. An article in a previous issue of evo magazine suggested that because each wheel/motor is completely independent, it's technically possible to make the left and right wheels spin in opposite directions to make the Concept_One "turn on the spot like a tank." This probably won't be a selectable mode for customers, though...

Of course, however you tell it to go around corners, the straight-line performance will be the same. It's a good thing it's utterly bonkers, then! The four motors' combined max power of 800kW translates to 1073bhp, while you also get a whopping 1180lb/ft of instantly-delivered torque from 0-6500rpm. In case it wasn't obvious, those are really high numbers. Like, really high. The rear gearboxes only having to change gear once during a flat-out run also saves a lot of time compared to engine-powered cars of similar performance. Speaking of which, let me put the Concept_One's numbers into context:

All figures are as claimed by the manufacturers

Yeah. This car is in the big leagues, make no mistake. It can take care of a Veyron SS from 100-300km/h quite comfortably, despite lacking 110 horsepower and weighing slightly more. Given that the big bad Bug' took twice as long to develop by the world's biggest automotive powerhouse (Volkswagen Automotive Group) in a money-no-object manner, I think you'll agree that's more than a little impressive for a growing start-up company currently employing fewer than 200 people. The one caveat with a Veyron comparison is that the Bugatti was engineered to work just as well a decade after it was built, whereas we can't possibly know about the longevity of this new electric car. The Rimac's top speed is 221mph (355km/h), which doesn't touch the three cars above but could very well make it the fastest all-electric vehicle ever made.

Let's also point out the weight. The Veyron may have an engine the size of some small cars, but the Rimac's got 8450 battery cells to store all the electricity needed to give such a powerful car "an acceptable range" of realistically around 330km/205mi. While they're improving all the time, batteries still weigh a lot, so even though the Rimac's overall package is much simpler mechanically, it can't score a significant weight advantage until even more size-efficient batteries come along. But look at the bigger picture here - this car has four big motors, four gearboxes and thousands of batteries, yet it weighs 390kg less than the most powerful Tesla Model S, and only 55kg more than the very conventional Lexus RC F V8 coupé which is a lot slower. This car isn't inexcusably heavy, it's just no lightweight either. Besides, with the centre of gravity extremely low and central in the car, it should keep its bulk under control quite nicely. Distribution is 42:58 front-to-rear, so it should generate good traction even with all that torque.

The battery system itself can discharge up to a megawatt of energy under full acceleration, while regenerative braking can send as much as 400kW of energy back into the battery. In fact, the car's electronic brakes can generate 0.6g of deceleration without even activating the mechanical brakes. So it stops as well as it goes.

Inside, you will find no plastic at all. Everything visible and touchable is made of billet aluminium, carbon fibre or alcantara. Don't go looking for borrowed switches either - they machined all the knobs and pedals and such in their own facility using machines and tools of their own design. Instead, you find chunky metal switches to control the car's dynamics, and a touchscreen just above it for infotainment and secondary adjustments to the car itself, using software written by Rimac. As explained above, you could go to a track and get super nerdy with adjusting your brake force distribution/torque split/regen-braking level, or you can just turn a knob and engage "track mode" to let the car sort it all out. You can even record telemetry gathered from over 500 sensors in the car and either look at it live or store it on a cloud server using 4G internet to look at later on your computer or phone, if you're that way inclined. Alternatively you can just invite people for passenger rides, tell them nothing about the car and then do 0-185mph in about 14 seconds. Just make sure to film them if you do!

The LED tail lights also vent heat through the middle of them

Purists will scoff, but forget them. I can't even imagine what it must be like to have nearly 1100 horsepower delivered in one sustained surge. Maybe it's like a tube train multiplied by ten, or hitting Warp Drive on a spaceship! To almost-silently annihilate any car on the road at a set of lights would also be pretty entertaining, I suspect. Especially as matey boy in his M3 would have absolutely no idea what just blasted past him. I can't wait to read about what it's like to drive. As for corners, Rimac's test driver Miroslav Zrnčevič told evo magazine that the car feels 500kg lighter and requires less steering lock with the RAWTV system activated, the effect being comparable to a Mitsubishi Evo IX's Active Yaw Control in his opinion.

The Concept_One will go on sale soon, with a target price of €800,000 before taxes. I translate that to £630,102, plus 20% VAT is £756,122. On the one hand, that's a hell of a lot for an all-new car from a company most people have never heard of. On the other hand, there will only be eight of them, it's all completely bespoke and it's the ultimate expression of what is possible, both for current electric sports cars and for a little start-up company in Croatia who mainly do business by applying their knowhow and facilities to other people's projects. Oh, and it can outperform cars worth over £1million, so there's that!

You can learn more about Rimac by watching this presentation by Mate, and read the full Concept_One press release here, where you will also find more images.

Images are from Rimac. Article written for SmallBlog V8. Please report if it is republished elsewhere.