Ferrari F12 Berlinetta review

Can Maranello evoke past greats with its latest front-engined V12?

The F12's styling owes more than a little to the 275 GTB

When Maranello announced the Ferrari F12 Berlinetta on the eve of 2012's Geneva show, its billing as the fastest road-going Ferrari ever made, either in terms of bald acceleration or around the firm’s Fiorano handling circuit, or indeed anywhere, was formidable.

The supercar cognoscenti would probably still be in awe of all that now, if it weren’t for the models that Ferrari has unveiled since: specifically, one headline-stealing 950bhp hybrid.

Although Ferrari has been making front-engined V12 grand touring sports cars for the road for almost six decades, the car to which the new F12 owes its biggest debt is probably the 275 GTB of 1964 Overshadowed or not, though, the Ferrari F12 Berliner is a landmark in its own right, and having been to Italy to sample it, witnessed it disdainfully dismiss the equivalent Lamborghini in a comparison test and seen it come painfully close to scooping our 2013 Best Driver’s Car title, it’s time to get well and truly under this car’s ingeniously sculpted aluminium skin.

Since the 275, Maranello has made equivalent front-engined V12 models in the form of the 365 GTB/4 (Daytona), 550 Maranello, 575M and 599. But during a 23-year gap between the Daytona and 550, it abandoned the front-engined V12 concept to experiment with mid-engined flat 12 models like the Testarossa.

It’s not just those with a cool quarter of a million pounds of vested interest in this car who will be interested to discover the full breadth and scope of the Ferrari F12’s talent and stature however, and nowhere will you get a fuller picture.

Toyota i-Road first drive review

What is it?

In the words of its creator Akihiro Yanaka, the Toyota i-Road combines “the manoeuvrability of a motorbike, with the economy and stability of a small family car.”

A tandem two seat three-wheeler, it tilts into bends while being steered from the rear by a tiny single wheel. Propulsion comes from a pair of electric motors located within the front wheels. In the UK it would be classified as a scooter, allowing it has a slightly disappointing 28mph top speed – for Japan this climbs to a more exciting 37mph - and has a range of just over 30 miles when driven with a bit of restraint, and 25 miles if you can’t resist extracting the most of its darting charms. It takes three hours to recharge.

The i-Road is intended purely as a set of urban wheels and promisingly,Toyota plans to trial it in both Toyota City, near Nagoya, and Grenoble in southern France as part of a 70-strong fleet of tiny electric tandem two-seaters entering service in autumn next year.

The other vehicle, known as the COM, is a four-wheeler similar in concept to Renault’s Twizy, if less sexy looking. The i-Road, by contrast, looks very sexy indeed. Styled by Koji Fujita, this is the concept as it appeared at last year’s Geneva motor show, from its ‘50s locomotive style Cyclops headlight to the slender casings that cap its tilting front wheels and the horizontal strip of its tail-lights. It’s less than 2.5m long and rides on a 1700mm wheelbase, but the critical statistic is its 850mm width.

That’s about the same as a motorbike, making the i-Road very easy to thread through city streets, while allowing no less than four of them to occupy the parking space of a single car. 

Its mechanicals are no less interesting than its looks. The slender front wheels are jointed to a yoke system that allows them to tilt – imagine a see-saw with a pair of vertical struts descending to the wheel hubs from either end – while the rear wheel steers at a variable rate depending on your speed, turning more tightly for a given lock at lower speeds. Manoeuvrability is the key.

With two motors up front the i-Road needs quite a complex control system in order that they don’t fight each other in a straight line, besides enabling one to spin more slowly than the other in a turn. With only two kilowatts apiece to dispense – that’s a little over 5bhp – minimising the i-Road’s weight has been critical, the three-wheeler weighing around 300kg in concept form. However, this example uses an aluminium chassis that would be too expensive for a production version, which would probably resort to steel.

Nissan Note review

The new Nissan Note occupies a segment that's tough to love: that of the supermini-size MPV.

As packed with cost-effective worthiness as they may be, most inflated superminis inspire a level of must-have desire roughly equivalent to that of a built-up shoe.

By seeking to do an unglamorous job in the most inoffensive way possible, most disappear under the car-fancier radar and get hoovered up by mature buyers who sensibly value decent ingress and egress more than a raked B-pillar.

This self-limiting fact has clearly not passed Nissan by. The previous Note was typical of the breed, and although it found a grateful audience (not to mention a four-star road test grade), it was too tall and boxy to effectively battle the cutely turned – and massive-selling – Ford Fiesta and Renault Clio.

The new model, underpinned by an entirely new platform and cleverer engines, seeks to redress that balance. As before, the Note is built in Britain at Nissan's Sunderland factory. Its 'V' (for 'versatile') platform is shared not with the new Renault Clio, despite the Nissan/Renault alliance, but with the current Micra, albeit suitably enlarged in this instance.

It still claims highly competitive practicality but has adopted a much more typical supermini body that, Nissan hopes, will prove more palatable to a much wider pool of potential customers.

Mercedes-Benz E-Class review

The E-class is a refined and relaxing return to old Mercedes qualities

Has there ever been a car offered for sale with a broader remit than the Mercedes-Benz E-class?

We’re not just saying this because the car is offered for sale as a saloon, estate, coupe and cabriolet, for there are many others you can buy in just as wide a number of configurations.

But we know of no other car that can claim on the one hand to be a supercar with more power than astandard SLS, on another the most capacious estate money can currently buy and, on a third, far and away Germany’s most popular taxi. If versatility alone decided such things, the E-class would be the class leader at a canter.

Its competition, however, is stronger than ever: the BMW 5-series is an ever-present threat while the Jaguar XF is always going to attract the eye of aesthetes and enthusiasts alike. Even the Audi A6, the one car in the class you could once always have counted upon to fail to beat the best is now a formidably able contender.

Now comfortably past its mid-life facelift, the current generation of E-class comes with a rationalised range, though to see how much choice remains available it may be hard to believe it.

However ninety per cent of E-classes sold in Britain are powered by diesel and here the choice is between two standard 2.2-litre four cylinder engines producing 168 and 201bhp respectively, a diesel hybrid based on the same unit with 228bhp or a V6 3-litre diesel offering 249bhp and only a fraction less torque than that aforementioned SLS.

For those not yet persuaded by the black pump you can either have a 2-litre petrol engine with either 181bhp or 208bhp or a 5.5-litre twin turbo V8 in the AMG developing 549bhp in standard trim and that SLS-busting 577bhp for the ‘S’ model. Between these poles there is no middle ground.

Range Rover LWB first drive review

At £105,840 though, it's a very expensive optionYes, there really are people out there for whom the Range Rover’s sky-high levels of refinement, the silky smooth powertrain, the commanding driving position and sheer breadth of dynamic ability are not the main attractions. They like to sit back, relax and enjoy the ride in the sumptuous interior from one of the seats without a steering wheel in front of it.

And those types of Range Rover customers now have their very own model. The long-wheelbase Range Rover grows 200mm in length over the standard model on which it is based to 5199mm, the bulk of this increase going to rear passengers, who can enjoy an extra 186mm of legroom.

That growth comes by extending the bodyshell in front of the rear wheels, but some subtle styling tricks mean that at first glance you don’t see the extra bulk the extra length brings. The Range Rover’s classic proportions remain intact, in other words.

The car will be coming to the UK in March next year offered with the 4.4-litre SDV8 diesel engine (£102,120) and the potent 5.0-litre V8 Supercharged (£105,840) range-topper we’re testing here. Autobiography trim is the sole offering from launch. 

What is it like?

Before we play chauffeur, it’s only right to be chauffeured first, given that’s where most of the long-wheelbase Range Rovers owners will be spending their journeys. They won’t be disappointed. 

A standard bench or optional individual chairs feature, either of which can be reclined up to 17 degrees, up from the eight degrees of the standard wheelbase model. There’s all sorts of toys and tricks that can be specced, to, from large TV screens to a front passenger seat that slides all the way forward into the footwell to create a long space you could host an Ashes test match on. 

On the move, the ride quality is fantastic, isolating you from broken and rutted town surfaces, and remaining composed and stable on high-speed roads. It’s smooth and comfortable enough in the back to do work, have a snooze, make some important decisions, or whatever folk who like to be driven around do.

Should the owner want to give their chauffeur the night off and drive to, erm, Waitrose, Carluccio’s or the BAFTAs themselves, they’ll enjoy life from the driver’s seat just as much.

The biggest compliment to pay to the car in the way it drives is to say it feels like a Range Rover Supercharged with a standard wheelbase, despite its extra size and weight over an already big, heavy car. The straight-line performance is prodigious, visibility is of course excellent, the handling sure-footed and confidence-inspiring, the car being easily placed in a corner.

Should I buy one?

This is a car that pushes Range Rover fully into Bentley levels of opulence, and a worthy rival to a Mercedes S-class in terms of a car you’d like to be driven in as well as drive.

Range Rover Long Wheelbase 5.0 V8 Supercharged 

Price £105,840; 0-60mph 5.5sec; Top speed 140mph; Economy20.5mpg; Co2 322g/km; Kerbweight 2413kg; Engine 5000cc, V8, petrol, supercharged; Power 503bhp at 6000-6500rpm; Torque 460lb ft at 2500-5500rpm; Gearbox 8-speed automatic 

Porsche 918 Spyder first drive review

Our first drive in the new Porsche supercar reveals a model with amazing potential. McLaren and Ferrari should be nervous

The 918 feels natural on the road, and that's how it should be

What is it?

The 918 Spyder is, according to Porsche, the future of the sports car. It's also the spiritual successor to a whole host of Porsche's most classic hypercars from the past - from the 959 to the Carrera GT - and is a technological tour de force at the same time. 

In combining 4.6-litres worth of high revving, race-bred conventional V8 engine with electric motors that power both the front and rear axles, it is, for the time being, the fastest road car on the planet, with a combined power output of 875bhp at 8500rpm and a thumping 944lb ft of torque. 

And before you reply with a cynical "Yes, but its lithiom ion battery pack means it weighs far more than it should, so it's not as quick as it could be were it a pure sports car" consider this: the battery pack on its own does indeed add some 314kg to the car's kerb weight, but without its hybrid powertrain Porsche says the 918 would be more than five seconds slower around the Nürburgring.

In other words, the Spyder's combination of batteries, electric motors and conventional combustion engine power do not mean it is in anyway compromised as a design but, instead, optimised to deliver as much performance but also as much economy at the same time.

And the numbers it produces are truly extraordinary. As in sub seven minutes around the Nürburgring, 0-60mph in 2.5sec (in Weissach specification), 0-186mph in 19.9sec (again in Weissach spec) and between 25-30mpg when tootling about in the real world. Genuinely.

Forget for a moment the headline-grabbing 94.1mpg claims, they are generated with the car driving only in Hybrid mode; the reality is that the 918 will burn about the same amount of fuel as a high-ish powered saloon car during regular on-road driving.

Which is nothing short of incredible, you'll agree, but is also the 918's reason to be - because job one when the project started was to build a super-sports car that could return 3.0-litres per 100km (94.1mpg), which could also lap the Nürburgring in 7min 15sec. Which also means the car has massively over delivered on the performance front in its final showroom specification.

And the cost for all this magic? 781,155 euros (£652,849) in standard specification, or 853,155 euros (£712,088) in 41kg lighter Weissach Pack spec.

Lamborghini Aventador roadster review

The Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4v roadster is the most extraordinary car in the company’s illustrious 50-year history, or so said the firm's charismatic chairman, Stephan Winkelmann, at the car’s launch in Miami.

Don’t for one moment think of the roadster as some kind of folly, however, or as a car that hasn’t somehow been engineered thoroughly for the job. Unlike the Murciélago roadster, which was something of an afterthought to be honest, the open-top Aventador is a standalone model in its own right.Then again, one look at the mightyAventador roadster in the flesh tells you that it is indeed right up there with Lamborghini’s most outrageous creations. It looks like the sort of car Batman might drive on his day off, maybe when he’s on holiday in Miami Beach.

Its styling is unique, considerable care and attention having been employed to ensure it of a separate, more extrovert personality compared with the coupé. And beneath its reptilian-like skin, while it shares its basic carbonfibre tub platform, 6.5-litre V12 engine and seven-speed single-clutch gearbox with the coupé, dynamically it is perhaps more impressive than the fixed head, for reasons we’ll come to in a moment.

Despite weighing some 50kg more than the coupé, Lamborghini claims the Roadster can set exactly the same time around the number one handling circuit at the Nardo test facility in the hands of all its test drivers.

Had the roof simply been removed and various areas of the car not been redesigned to accommodate the one quarter decrease in stiffness, there is no way the Roadster could achieve such basic speed across the ground.

On the road that’s exactly how it feels: pure, fast and sharp, and perhaps even a touch more precise than the coupé at the front end thanks to the fitment of bigger diameter tyres (optional 21-inch 355/25s at the back with 20-inch 255/35s at the front on the one we tested). These, say Lambo’s testers, make a small but key difference to front-end bite during the turn-in phase.

The result is a car that's less prone to understeer in slow corners (which is welcome) without there being any extra nervousness at the back in fast corners (ditto). Overall the Roadster just feels like it has more grip than the coupé everywhere, basically, and at least as well balanced near its monumental limits.

So although it might weigh an extra 50kg, the roadster gives little if anything away to the coupé from behind the wheel. Other than the fact there’s no roof, it even feels the same when you’re in the driving seat, which is no surprise given that the dashboard, instruments, switchgear and seats are all identical to those of the fixed head.

The roof itself comes in two forged carbonfibre panels that are removed by unlocking a couple of latches and lifting them out manually. Each panel weighs just 3kg and stores neatly beneath the bonnet in the boot. Once in situ they render the luggage capacity all but useless, but then, asLamborghini says, “You don’t buy a car like this to go shopping with”. Which is fair enough, even if it would be handy to be able to put something slightly larger than a toothbrush in the boot when the sun comes out.

Rather more impressive (and entirely believable) is Lamborghini’s claim that the roadster can reach its astonishing 217mph top speed with or without the roof in place. The highest speed I reached was about 160mph along the main straight at the Homestead-Miami Speedway, at which point any noise being generated by the wind was drowned out completely by the machinations of that monster V12.

At lower speeds, however, it’s clear that Lamborghini's designers and aerodynamicists have done a fine job of managing the flow of air away from the cockpit: at 80mph with the windows up and the small rear bulkhead screen raised, conversation is remarkably easy to maintain.