Long term tests

The Fast Fleet has rarely entertained a car as divisive as the Smart Roadster Brabus. Like Marmite, some people loved it, others found it made them go…

I think I may be turning into my father, which is slightly unsettling, though not as unsettling as turning into my mother. I started thinking about th…

We've bought a few silly cars in our time, but our new Mustang GT surely has to take the biscuit. Or should I say the flame-grilled whopper with chees…

As I mentioned in the End of Term report on my Digi-Tec Smart Roadster Coupe (issue 079), I have replaced it with a car boasting precisely three times…

In quieter moments I wonder if it was such a good idea to order the new Monaro VXR in black.

It's a measure of the FQ-340's head-spinning grunt that everyone who drives it barely mentions the grip or the lightning turn-in. As they hand back th…

My ride has been pimped! The new 17in Prodrive wheels have finally been fitted, and along with the extra 'bling factor' there's the promise of loads m…

I know I'm preaching to the converted here, but power oversteer is a wonderful thing. I mean truly beautiful. You know that happy feeling of satisfact…

What fun. An Impreza on stilts. I can remember thinking the same thing when I drove our previous Forester turbo long-termer, the mk1 version, six year…

Another month spent commuting by air to the Isle of Man with, to be honest, only spasmodic use of the MG that's been billeted there. Unfortunately, wh…

Our lesser-spotted 340R came out of hiding this month for a guest appearance at the opening of a new Lotus showroom at Dick Lovett's in Swindon (it's …

By the end of this year the Smart Roadster will be dead, a victim of DaimlerChrysler's hard-nosed plan to make its baby-car brand earn some profit for…

A memory comes back to me from the early '90s, of driving the then-new 3.8-litre version of the M5. I can vividly remember being blown away by the Bee…

I was having some time off from my day job as Script Ed on Top Gear telly when news broke that we were re-recording a batch of studio links for an Ame…

Last month, you may remember, young Bovvers declared that, thanks to a set of aggressively grippy Dunlop Super Sport Race tyres, his love for the Evo …

Having retired from my City job and moved out of London (you win, Ken), I find my faithful Smart Roadster Coupe

Snow stopped play for most of March, with a triple whammy of Arctic weather at home, a week's skiing in Switzerland and, finally and most frustratingl…

Some things in life are certain. Toast will always drop butter-side down; there will always be a traffic jam when you're late; you will never have the…

I've always really enjoyed Evos, from the first Evo VII Extreme that I tried, through John Barker's manic Evo VII RS and particularly the latest MR ge…

The welcome arrival at the Buckley household of the Mondeo ST has coincided with the arrival of another fine Ford, a 1970 Zodiac MkIV estate - that's …

With the S Works long gone and no 'everyday' replacement on the horizon, I've been relying on the Exige almost exclusively of late. Much as I'd like t…

Brabus Roadster owning evo reader Anthony Yule wrote in last month to defend the car's gearbox in the face of a sound dissing from the evo crew during…

We're serial Mini owners here at evo, having bought and subsequently failed to sell our early Cooper Works (42,528 miles and counting) and our Hartge-…

How many Porsche 911s did they make last week? Have you any idea? Well, I'll tell you. Five hundred, give or take a few. How many SVs did MG manufactu…

It hasn't taken me long to damage the Caterham. Or to be more exact, it hasn't taken long for the local council's decision to build the world's most r…

When my new four-wheel-drive Forester 2.5 XT long-term test car was delivered to Evo Towers, the first fall of winter was swirling around outside my w…

Jaguar is back in the headlines this month, and this time for the right reasons. Finally it has revealed the car it should have built at least five ye…

Last month I mentioned that while our 645 is great to own, it suffers from not doing anything outstandingly. Put another way, it lacks star quality. B…

Last month I may have given you the impression that the Evo was foolproof. I can still recall the exact phrase, in fact: 'It seems impossible to wrong…

If all the cars I've run, the Clio V6 255 has been the best, and by some margin. I wouldn't be surprised if we have just said an emotional goodbye to …

Lotus advises you spend 1000 miles carefully running-in your new Exige. Not an excessive mileage, but as it took me nearly three years to cover a sham…

Winter's icy breath is whispering that the season of fun is over for the Elise, but before tucking it away to wait for the return of clement weather, …

I've been wearing a groove in the A14, M11, M25 and M23 this month, with four trips to Gatwick. My heart always sinks when a launch invite mentions th…

It's been a frustrating month or so for the Caterham, as we've all been too busy to exercise it in its natural environment, the track. Now that the ev…