My base? - The high-tech testing ground for Formula One - Circuit Paul Ricard. My mission? - To find find my favourite car of the year.
My candidates? - For starters there’s a pair of Ferraris… the V12, 6.3 litre FF and the 458.
There’s the UK challenger to the 458… McLaren’s MP4-12C. Joining the action are the latest gizmo-laden Nissan GTR, Porsche’s GT2 RS, the 570-horsepower Lamborghini Performante and the built-for-fun BMW 1M.
Helping me are tame racing driver The Stig and the not-so-tame Formula One new boy, Karun Chandhok. I look into the future - in the shape of the hybrid-engined Mugen Honda CR-Z… And there are blasts from the past as well. The beautiful Eagle Speedster - a modern twist on the iconic, timeless E-Type…with its 4.7 litre engine - and an eye-watering £500,000 price tag. And there’s the all new Jensen Interceptor R with its 6.2 litre Corvette motor.
Plus, from the minds of boffins at a German museum, there’s the mighty Brutus…a vintage car fitted with a flame-spitting BMW airplane engine. Also there’s enough in-your-face power to flambé your eyebrows from the single-seater, super-lightweight B.A.C. Mono - capable of 0-60 in 2.8 seconds.
Circuit Paul Ricard tests all these cars and more to the limit…
But it’s not all about performance on the track. I take to the open road to see if small can be beautiful. I squeeze my sizeable know-how into the bonkers Citroen DS3 Racing, the pocket rocket Abarth 500C and the dinky Renault Clio Cup.
How to sum up all this action…Well, I sit in a chair, a man has a mishap…And a brown car goes round a corner…
great video, actually brings up a question with the new mclaren… does it use the bmw motor thats in the new m5? a v8 twin turbo which is rated at 550 in the m5 and 595 i think they said in this mclaren, maybe no correlation just wondering
The car is powered by the M838T 3.8 litre twin-turbo V8 engine, designed and developed by McLaren in partnership with Ricardo. The design of the engine was based on the Nissan VRH35 racing engine used in Le Mans in 1998. However, other than the 93 mm bore, little of that engine remains in the M838T. It produces 592 bhp (441 kW; 600 PS) and 443 lb·ft (601 N·m) of torque. It has a redline of 8,500 rpm, with 80% of torque available at just 2,000 rpm. When first announced, McLaren claimed that it would have a higher horsepower to carbon dioxide emission ratio than any internal-combustion engine available at the time.
crazybrew thanks for the info, only reason i started to make the connection was because the old mclaren had a bmw v12 im pretty sure so i didnt know if they kept with that fashion form using their motors
I have a hard time enjoying anyone or anything trying so damn hard to look as cool as the people they are replacing.
Tanner I want to punch in the face so hard. Everything about him annoys the shit out of me.
They try to sound funny and have cool skits and shit like the OG TopGear but just dont match it at all.
And the videography in the OG topgear just has a “feel” to it. It can be the same producers and shit but there is just something about the old one that cant be duplicated. You can mute the OG stuff and not even see the guys in the skits, and still instantly tell its the real Top Gear.