The Cupholder - BBC Top Gear

Where’s Cupholder?

Paul Regan — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:18:29 GMT

If you spotted Tuesday’s little tweak to TopGear.com you might be wondering where Cupholder and Foreman have gone. Following our big relaunch back in October last year, we’re planning some further revisions to TopGear.com, based on your feedback and research we’ve carried out into the way people use the site. One of the things we’ve decided to [...]

All quiet on the western front

Matt Master — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:45:48 GMT

Remember when the Mayor of London promised to can the western extension of the Congestion Charge zone? Well, the process is currently bogged down in boring, unfathomable consultations and bureaucracy. If you visit the Con Charge website, there’s a link to what’s going on, or what isn’t. Bits of it sound promising though, and the upshot [...]

TG GP ‘09: the results

Paul Regan — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:18:55 GMT

So that’s it. Eighteen hours of mechanical torture across city, country and track in an army of 11 cars totalling 4,791bhp. And, as you’ll know if you’ve got a copy of Top Gear magazine, no winner. Which is why we thought we’d give you – the lovely readers of TopGear.com – the chance to make up [...]

TG GP ’09: the poll

Paul Regan — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 09:00:11 GMT

UPDATE: VOTING NOW CLOSED. …so this post turns into an official results list for those that care about the numbers. For an easier-to-digest look at the results, follow this link. With all the web-exclusive Stig videos and supercar blogs littered across TopGear.com this week, it can’t have escaped your notice that we’ve been thinking hard about on [...]

McMerc SLR Stirling Moss

Jason Barlow — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:12:14 GMT

With Mercedes and McLaren now going their separate ways, at least when it comes to road cars, can we assume that they’ve agreed to disagree? I’ve already driven the AMG Merc SLS, and it’s a belter. I’ve also seen the new McLaren road car, and it features a handful of technical advancements that’ll blow your mind. [...]

Lotus Evora

Paul Horrell — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 10:44:37 GMT

What an extraordinary company Lotus is. These few chaps from Norwich have managed, not for the first time, to build a car that does the very hardest things with transcendent brilliance. The most enormous companies with the biggest engineering resources can’t beat this Lotus for its steering or its suspension damping. These are two of the [...]

Ford Focus RS

Bill Thomas — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:51:59 GMT

If there had to be a winner of this ‘group test’, if ‘group test’ is what you want to call it, then you could construct a valid argument for every one of the TG GP ‘09 cars to win. In different ways, they all do. But for me, gazing out over the Top Gear track and [...]

Lambo Murciélago SV

Tom Ford — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:06:38 GMT

The SV is not a subtle car. As soon as it appears, childish you starts jabbering and capering about in your head: ‘Look! It’s got a massive wing! And look, the exhaust is a lozenge-shaped cave… And it’s so BIG, and WIDE and NOISY and orange’. You are reduced to a state of pure gawp. It’s [...]

Stig Showdown: one day to go

Paul Regan — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:20:32 GMT

UPDATE: Just one day to go before our TG GP ‘09 poll closes. If you’re not one of the 7,500 who have voted so far, get clicking. So far, we’ve seen our tame racing driver lap the Aston Vantage V12, Ferrari 599 HGTE, KTM X-Bow, Porsche 911 GT3, Nissan 370Z, Renaultsport Clio 200 Cup and [...]

Stig Showdown: the story so far

Jamie Hibbard — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:20:32 GMT

We’re a week in to our fastest cars of the year showdown and with more than 5,000 of you voting for your favourites, it’s time for an update. So far, we’ve seen our tame racing driver lap the Aston Vantage V12, Ferrari 599 HGTE, KTM X-Bow, Porsche 911 GT3, Nissan 370Z, Renaultsport Clio 200 Cup [...]

TG GP ’09: the poll

Paul Regan — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:09:11 GMT

With all the web-exclusive Stig videos and supercar blogs littered across TopGear.com this week, it can’t have escaped your notice that we’ve been thinking hard about on the fastest cars of the year. Top Gear magazine’s been at it too – and you can read even more about Stig’s showdown in the September issue. But one [...]

Renaultsport Clio 200 Cup

Matt Master — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 10:45:09 GMT

It’s a given that the Cup is special. Otherwise it wouldn’t be here, amongst quarter-mil Italian exotica and daft stuff without windscreens. But just how special a £15k French hatchback can really be is something that still took every one of us by surprise. It’s a well-worn truism that point-to-point, across the typical British B-road, a [...]

Nissan 370Z

Tom Ford — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 09:12:54 GMT

The problem with hanging out with maniacs is that they can make you look like you lack spontaneity. OK, so they might be spitting nonsense, smoking crack and trying to rip the faces off passers-by, but at least they aren’t dull. Which is what happens with the 370Z when it hangs out with a gaggle of [...]

TG GP ’09: the poll

Paul Regan — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:09:11 GMT

Audi R8 V10

Piers Ward — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:14:02 GMT

Control. That’s what this R8 is all about – control of your emotional reactions, control of traction, poise, efficacy, efficiency, attention to detail. On the one hand that’s great. You can roll out the cliché about an ‘everyday supercar’ and it actually means something. In all the miles I did in the V10 I didn’t feel [...]

Porsche 911 GT3

Jason Barlow — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 09:53:01 GMT

The Porsche 911 is the water of the car world. It sounds absurd, but hear me out. We take it for granted and it’s so omnipresent we barely notice it, yet we couldn’t live without it. See what I’m getting at? But unlike water, Porsche has improved the 911. Almost none of the mid-life changes the [...]

Ferrari 599 HGTE

Bill Thomas — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 07:00:23 GMT

You’re flicking through the brochure of the £202,679 Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano F1 you’re about to order and wondering whether to tick the £13,960 Handling Gran Turismo Evoluzione (HGTE) package box. To tick, or not to tick? Nice choice to have, first of all. Very nice. The sort of choice we’d all like to have. This [...]

KTM X-Bow

Matt Master — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 09:13:27 GMT

The alliance between X-Bow and self was uneasy, initially due to a certain physical discomfort, and latterly thanks to a repeat inability to actually keep it pointing in the right direction. By way of an introduction, the carbon bath and I went for a vigorous exploration of the back roads around the Top Gear test track. [...]

Aston Martin V12 Vantage

Paul Horrell — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 10:53:49 GMT

Top Gear likes a bit of controversy, and it’s the Aston that provided it. Us mortals loved the V12 Vantage, lining up to declare it the best Aston ever. But the Stig declared us mistaken. The discord is about the Aston’s handling. Last year on the Isle of Man we had a DBS and we hated [...]

This is going to be fast

Bill Thomas — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 10:52:52 GMT

On the cover of Top Gear magazine this month it says, ‘18 hours, 11 cars, 4,791bhp, our track and the ultimate driver’. But of course, it was much, much more than that. This was a bunch of cars that, when you saw them lined up, you weren’t quite sure where to look first. The reaction, as [...]

Greatest trailer EVER!

Sam Philip — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:04:02 GMT

There are not the words in the English language to describe the sheer magnificence of this trailer for upcoming car flick ACCELERATOR!. All we can say is this: you are a single click away from the greatest 101 seconds of your life. (Warning: contains gratuitous cleavage, possibly not safe for work.) At 261mph, no one can hear [...]

The real X-Factor…

Sam Philip — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:20:10 GMT

The Red Bull X Fighters show is heading to London on August 22. If you enjoy watching men defy gravity before plunging back down to earth in a blizzard of rapturous applause and splintering limbs, this is good news. If you’ve never heard of the X Fighters, we’ve dug out this handy YouTube video-game-type-thing by way [...]

Block and Pastrana do Bonneville

Sam Philip — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:07:11 GMT

You’ve probably gathered by now that we’re big fans of Ken Block and Travis Pastrana here at Top Gear. Whether it’s nailing 70-foot jumps in the X Games or backflipping motocross bikes over jumping Subarus, the two guys represent all that’s good about irresponsible hoonage. And now, fresh from their weekend hanging out with Top Gear at [...]

Total washout

Paul Regan — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:59:47 GMT

The fastest way to wash your car? Probably not. But you’ve got a digger laying around and your car’s a bit grubby – what could possibly go wrong? Unfortunately, we can’t show you here – it’s a clip from the BoreMe website and for some reason we can’t embed it. Worth a quick look, though, in a [...]

Tumbleweed moment

Matt Master — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 12:18:43 GMT

Confused by BMW’s 5 Series Gran Turismo? Take a ticket. Hamann, one of Germany’s least bashful aftermarket modifiers, has got hold of a pre-launch model and then apparently had a total mental blank. With the exception of some dubious alloys and slightly restyled bumpers, we can’t see that they’ve changed anything at all. And this from [...]