Top Gear Magazine

There has never been an open-top version of the Chiron, as there was with the Veyron. But we’re not sad, because rather than merely cutting a hole in the roof to make one, Bugatti has instead given us this: the W16 Mistral. The jaw-dropping exterior is bespoke, just 99 will be made, and the price for admission is £5m. Production starts right about now, and every single one was sold out before it was revealed to the public back in 2022. It’s also the last-ever road-going Bugatti to use a W16 engine, before we move on to the V16-powered Tourbillon. And in this case, the quad-turbo, 8.0-litre, W16 engine goes out on a high, in the same 1600hp guise as used in the record-breaking 304mph Chiron Super Sport 300+. Speaking of which… when the roofless Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse hit 254mph in 2013, it did it with a mere 1200hp. With over a decade of engineering advancements behind it, including an extra 400hp, how fast might the W16 Mistral go? To find out, Top Gear joined Bugatti at the Papenburg proving ground in Germany, and snuck in a little go of our own. Over to Deputy Editor Ollie Kew, who, in this episode of the Top Gear Magazine Podcast tells Jack Rix, Rowan Horncastle and Ollie Marriage what it's like to be on set of a new World Record attempt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A few years ago, TG got an Eagle E-Type, Alfaholics GTA-R, Singer 911, GTO Engineering 250 SWB, and Bond’s DB5 in the same place, at the same time. Our insurers are still rocking back and forth to this day. Since then, the whole scene has exploded. But has it gone too far? In this episode of the Top Gear Magazine Podcast, Ollie Marriage explains Restogods Remastered, where he got an Automobili Amos Lancia Delta, Cyan P1800, Kimera 037, and Totem Giulia GTA together while Rowan Horncastle, Jethro Bovingdon, and Jack Rix interrogate him to see if they’re any good. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jack, Rowan, Ollie and Jethro discuss the cars and inside stories from the best week of the year... driving the 12 top performance cars of 2024 on road and track in Spain for a week... and there can only be one winner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jack, Rowan, Ollie and Jethro discuss the cars and inside stories from the best week of the year... driving the 12 top performance cars of 2024 on road and track in Spain for a week... and there can only be one winner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Not one but two new Porsche 911 GT3s are upon us, both a regular be-winged car and the more subtle Touring model. And for once, the headline news isn’t the power, the peak revs or the Nürburgring lap time, but how practical it is. That’s right, because for the first time in the 25-year history of the GT3, it’s being offered with back seats. It’s only for the Touring, but that addition alone will be enough to start The Internet chattering about whether this is ‘all the car you’ll ever need’. However, if kids, or at least taking your kids with you, isn’t your thing, then worry not. The back seats are merely an option, and the non-Touring GT3 can’t be had with them at all. Plus, if you’re the sort of Porsche purest who hates weight, you can double down on that ethos with either a Weissach pack for the GT3 or a Leichtbau (aka Lightweight) pack for the Touring. As for what else is new (and there are a lot of detailed, GT3 RS-inspired changes) then join Top Gear Magazine’s Associate Editor Tom Ford, for an in-depth walkaround of both new GT3s with Andreas Preuninger, Porsche’s Director of GT Cars… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jack Rix and Jason Barlow are invited into Ferrari's inner sanctum to learn all about the once-in-a-decade new hypercar. How on earth do you follow up the 288 GTO, F40, F50, Enzo and LaFerrari? Here's how... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tesla has revealed its long-awaited autonomous 'Cybercab' at an event in Los Angeles, we were there to soak up the insanity, take a ride in the driverless EV and bump into our good friend Marques Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Christian von Koenigsegg, Mate Rimac, John Hennessey... names don't get bigger in the world of hypercars. So we brought them together at Sonoma Raceway in California to share ideas... and drive each other's latest cars Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We all know EVs tend to work best in cities, we also know most EVs are a bit boring... enter a wave of retro-styled EV city cars designed to save us from mundane motoring Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

New models are coming thick and fast from Maranello, the team fires up the crystal ball and discusses a LaFerrari successor, new F40, first full EV and an even faster 296 GTB Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We asked you for questions, and you lot delivered. Rowan, Jack and Ollie Kew answer your burning questions including how to get a job at TG, is Ferrari cool and our favourite biscuits... bizarrely Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Looks like a miniature Batmobile, sounds like a TIE fighter from Star Wars, goes like the absolute clappers. And we’ve finally got behind the wheel of the McMurtry Spéirling – the car last seen kicking up dust and shredding hillclimb records at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. But it has been tinkered with and is now available to buy for a cool £984k. The new Spéirling Pure comes with all the goodies Max Chilton deployed at Goodwood. That means a twin-electric-motor setup powered by a 60kWh battery system detonating 745kW of electrons (or a nice, round 1,000bhp) on the rear axle. Together with a “patented downforce on demand system” and a scarcely believable kerbweight of under 1,000kg, this thing is capable of serious numbers. Not just 190mph flat out, but also the fact it’ll pull 3G through the corners and be able to lap Silverstone 10 times at proper flat-out pace, then recharge in 20 minutes to do it all over again. And Ollie Marriage has experienced it for himself. So, Rowan Horncastle and Ollie Kew grill him to find out what this Cheat Mode car is really like to drive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode of the Top Gear Magazine Podcast, we’re talking long term test cars. Ollie Marriage has just returned from a 3,000-mile trip in an Ineos Grenadier and we want to know if he and it survived. Ollie Kew proves how the new Mini is a bit of a fake and Rowan Horncastle is sad at the loss of driving a Porsche Cayenne S daily. And has anyone seen Jack Rix? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Don your chinos and join Ollie Kew for a special episode of the Top Gear Magazine Podcast as he wanders around the poshest part of California for Monterey Car Week. Don’t worry if you haven’t got access to the exclusive Quail lawns, as our Deputy Editor can sneak you and your ears behind the red velvet rope to get live reactions to the latest, greatest and most expensive cars on the planet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode of the Top Gear Magazine Podcast, we’re talking Venturos: the mini adventure monkey bike with a novel delivery method – it’s buried in the middle of nowhere and you have to go and find it. Having battled his way to and off the Isle of Jura, Rowan is back in the studio to talk about his, and other adventures with Ollie Marriage and Ollie Kew. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this week’s episode of Top Gear Magazine Podcast, we’re talking slippery cars. Having come back from Audi’s ‘Windkanal’ (that’s a wind tunnel, to you and me) Top Gear Magazine’s Deputy Editor, Ollie Kew, is our guide. He went to see just how far aerodynamics have come in nearly a century, so took the Auto Union Type C ‘Stromlinie’, the innovative Audi 100, and the new Audi A6-etron Avant, to the company’s wind tunnel for a little show ‘n’ tell. Now he’s going to try and explain his findings to Rowan Horncastle and Ollie Marriage before they all discuss if any car designed around the wind has ever been cool. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Christian von Koenigsegg is a glutton for engineering punishment. His Swedish hypercar company currently builds the Jesko (which has just set the 0-400km/h-0 record) and it’ll soon start delivering the new CC850 and Gemera to customers. That’s three distinct models, each with their own head-scratchingly complex innovations. And yet, amongst all this, he said “yes” to a request from a customer who wanted their older-model Agera RS melded with the best bits of a Jesko and CC850 to create an absolute one-off. Many engineering headaches later we have this, the Chimera, which blends an Agera RS with the 5.0-litre twin-turbo V8 engine from a Jesko and the fiendishly complex manual-cum-automatic gearbox from the CC850. In this episode of the Top Gear Magazine Podcast Jack Rix tries to explain the Swedish headache to the rest of the team. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aston’s 110th birthday present to itself is a machine so old school it has a wooden gearlever and recycled geography teacher upholstery. Analogue heaven, or expensive anachronism? We discuss that and the rise of the expensive manual gearbox with the help of the 911 S/T, GMA T.50 and Pagani Utopia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Looking for the ultimate flex at your local track day? Then we’ve got the consumer advice you need. In this episode of the Top Gear Magazine Podcast, Jethro Bovingdon details the pros and cons of the McLaren Solus GT (a lightweight, single-seat V10 of pure violence) against Ford’s long-tail tribute to the ’67 Le Mans-winning GT40 Mk IV, and the most extreme iteration of the third-gen Ford GT, the Ford GT Mk IV. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Join Top Gear magazine's Jack Rix and Rowan Horncastle as they guide you around this year's incredible mix of motors at the Duke of Richmond’s posh car garden party, the Goodwood Festival of Speed. So, whether you’re in the car, at work or walking the dog, pop your headphones in and prepare for an hour-long audio tour that takes in the latest and greatest cars from a giant lawn in West Sussex including the world’s greatest supercars, hypercars and an army of Chinese EVs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices