Lorenzo

With sales swelling across all regions Rolls does business in (and the Americas remaining the top Rolls-buying spot), the Spirit of Ecstasy chalked up 4,107 new homes last year. Not massive numbers, when you think Ford shifts that many Fiestas in the UK alone in under a month, but pretty stellar business in the context of £300k super-luxury flagships for the world’s one-percenters.

Unlike say, Porsche, Rolls-Royce doesn’t think it’s right and proper to actually reveal how many of each model were sold. Let a Wraith owner know their car might be potentially more common than a Dawn? Good heavens. That simply wouldn’t do. Rolls-Royce does let on that the new Phantom VIII is ‘a major growth driver’. Ker-ching.

Pushing those uber-impressive numbers even higher is the not-at-all-taxi-lookalike Cullinan SUV. You may not like the styling – and TG’s own Chris Harris didn’t mince his words – but there’s no denying a brash 4×4 is a gold-plated, cast-iron way to please the bean-counters.

The first few V12 4x4s arrived with owners just in time for Christmas (presumably under a Californian Redwood of a tree), but the metaphorical order book for the £250k SUV is chocker-block until the second half of 2019.

Not that many Rollers get sold for a base price, mind you. The marque proudly says “record levels of bespoke commissions have established Rolls-Royce as a true luxury house”. Who knows, maybe they’ll start doing mansions next. Knock the wheels off a Cullinan and you’re halfway there.

By: Ollie Kew, January 10, 2019

For more cars, check out: https://www.topgear.com/car-news/british/youre-buying-more-rolls-royces-ever

Source: https://www.topgear.com/

Brabham is going to Le Mans. Mere days after confirming a road car homologation package for its BT62 hypercar, it’s confirmed that, at the other end of the scale, it’ll be battling for GTE victory with an endurance racing version.

It only takes a brief understanding of motorsport history to know this is special. Founder Jack Brabham and his sons Geoff and David have all competed at the Le Mans 24 Hours, the latter respectively winning outright in 1993 and 2009.

David is now the MD of Brabham Automotive, as well as its lead test driver. “Returning the Brabham name to Le Mans is something I have been working on for years,” he says. “That work starts now with a long-term racing commitment.

“We look forward to developing the BT62 and future products while building a world-class competitive race team around the leading engineering and manufacturing talent we have in the business.”

Brabham has targeted the 2021/22 World Endurance Championship for its return to Le Mans, so there’s a small wait. But the good news is, if you’ve bought a BT62 track car, that you can be part of the racecar’s testing programme and – potentially – an amateur racer in one. Which might go some way to helping justify its £1.2m price tag…

By: Stephen Dobie, January 10, 2019

For more cars, check out: https://www.topgear.com/car-news/motorsport/brabham-bt62-hypercar-heading-le-mans

Source: https://www.topgear.com/

Nope, there’s no surprise Formula E entry, but the launch of Ferrari Challenge in the UK – with the 488 Challenge one-make series visiting Brands Hatch, Snetterton, Croft and Silverstone – and something called Club Competizioni GT.

The name sounds melodic enough in its own right, but the actual event ought to make grown humans cry with joy. While not a race series, it’s a posh trackday for anyone who happens to own one of a very lovely roster of Ferrari racecars made between 1989 and 2018.

Those cars? The Ferrari F40 Competizione, F50 GT and 575 GTC. The 348 LM, 360 GT and F430 GT3. More recent cars eligible to go out and play include endurance racing versions of the 458 and 488.

The playgrounds Ferrari’s picked aren’t half bad either, comprising Mugello, Indianapolis, Fuji and Vallelunga. Places that – across four dates this year – will host a noise battle between the V8s of an F40 and 458 and the V12s of an F50 and 575. Forget Glastonbury, there’ll be no better live music in 2019 than at Club Competizioni GT…

“It’s an entirely bespoke, clean-sheet design, dreamed up by Brabham purely to serve the race-track and nothing else. No road-going frivolity here.”

So said TopGear.com when the Brabham BT62 launched. Seems such single-mindedness has been putting potential owners off a bit, though, and news emerges that Brabham will, in fact, make it road-legal. Well, some of them.

If you’re really keen on having a BT62 you can take to your local cars and coffee meeting, Brabham will oblige. After telling TG about the option back in summer 2018 (remember when it was warm and sunny?) it’s now been confirmed as a £150,000 option, applied before your car’s delivered.

The changes include an axle-lift system to help you over speed bumps, an increase in steering lock, air con and better quality materials inside, plus some door locks and an immobiliser. It’s all reversible, too.

“The objective was to make the car legal, safe and usable on the road with minimal compromise to its race-bred circuit dynamics,” says Brabham. “Whilst there will be a slight increase in weight there will be no reduction in power, retaining the 700bhp power output.”

By: Stephen Dobie, January 7, 2019

For more cars, click here: https://www.topgear.com/car-news/supercars/brabham-bt62-can-be-made-road-legal

Source: https://www.topgear.com/

A while back I wrote a little piece about just how fast an Aston Martin DBS Superleggera is against the clock. And it is. Very. As fast to 100mph as an AMG GT R and Porsche 911 GT3 RS, and faster still if you discount the initial traction issues, and consider the 60-130mph increment. That’s dusted in under seven seconds. A Porsche 911 Turbo S can’t say that. Nor can the 858bhp Hennessey Mustang we ran earlier this year, or Litchfield’s GT-R Track Pack.

A while back I wrote a little piece about just how fast an Aston Martin DBS Superleggera is against the clock. And it is. Very. As fast to 100mph as an AMG GT R and Porsche 911 GT3 RS, and faster still if you discount the initial traction issues, and consider the 60-130mph increment. That’s dusted in under seven seconds. A Porsche 911 Turbo S can’t say that. Nor can the 858bhp Hennessey Mustang we ran earlier this year, or Litchfield’s GT-R Track Pack.

But you wanted more. Specifically, you wanted to know how it compared to Ferrari’s 812 Superfast. The reason is clear. Both are front-engined GT-bodied supercars, designed to take two people and a considerable amount of luggage a decent distance. But they do so using very different strategies.

The Aston wades in with a twin turbo 5.2-litre V12 that’s all about torque – 663lb ft of it at a mere 1,800rpm. The 715bhp power output is largely a byproduct of the torque. Now meet its polar opposite. The Ferrari uses a naturally aspirated 6.5-litre V12. It doesn’t deliver maximum torque until 7,000rpm and even then it falls short of the Aston by a considerable 134lb ft. But here the torque is largely a byproduct of the colossal power – 789bhp at 8,500rpm.

OK, that’s not quite right, because the Ferrari has an operating range of quite majestic breadth. Like the Aston it’ll punch forward hard in any gear from 2,500rpm, but unlike the Aston which delivers an instant haymaker and then sustains that level, the Ferrari just keeps piling more and more pressure on the back wheels, acceleration building to a mesmerising crescendo. And an 8,900rpm cutout. Wider power band, shorter gearing, lighter weight – these things all count…

This year, Porsche will show us a new Cayman GT4, the first with the ‘718’ prefix in front of its name. Given the old GT4 has a truly wonderful, turbo-free flat-six engine in it – and all the 718s we’ve seen so far, um, don’t – there’s been some concerns about what form it’ll take.

We might be able to cast our worries aside, though. This is the 718 GT4 Clubsport racecar, a precursor to the road-going version. And it not only has a 3.8-litre flat-six in it, but one with 40bhp more than its predecessor: a potent 420bhp.

It comes mated exclusively to a six-speed PDK paddleshift gearbox in this Clubsport, but the road car will no doubt come with a manual when it arrives, given that was such a hallmark of the old GT4.

There are naturally lots of motorsport touches – a proper harnessed bucket seat, a welded-in roll cage, lightweight suspension components from the more senior 911 GT3 Cup car – and something else rather more unique to the Clubsport. Namely, some organic materials.

Yep, the doors and rear wing are made of something called ‘natural-fibre composite material’, by-products of agriculture (such as hemp) that apparently have similar weight and strength properties to carbon fibre.