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Somewhere in California Arnold Schwarzenegger has just exploded with excitement, because Hummer is BACK (baby). And its new truck is quite the thing.

It’s electric for starters, with GM’s clever new ‘Ultium’ batteries and three e-motors giving an estimated 1,000bhp, 11,500lb ft of torque and around 350 miles of range. 0-60mph takes “approximately three seconds”, while 350kW DC charging can supposedly replenish 100 miles of charge in just ten minutes.

Billed as “the ultimate off-road EV supertruck”, the Hummer EV comes with 35-inch tyres (though it’s compatible with 37s), adaptive air suspension with something called “Extract Mode” that can lift the body by six-inches and thick steel plating underneath to keep the battery from harm.

A shedload of cameras give up to 18 different views of the ground around (and under) the truck, which GM claims can scale “18-inch verticals”, wade through 2ft of water and quite literally side-step tricky obstacles with a “CrabWalk” feature that points the front and rear wheels in the same direction.

Inside you get a 13.4-inch centre screen and another 12.3-inch display just for the driver. Removable roof panels can be stowed in the Tesla-style “frunk”.

“It is fearsomely, intimidatingly fast. The way it fires itself across the second half of the rev range, coloured LEDs lighting up as you home in on a limiter you wish would cut in now to give you some respite from the relentless shove, is deeply affecting.

“The 765LT is not one for the faint-hearted.”

Now, you know how nature works. Things with a ferocious or venomous side tend to alert you with a bright array of colours across their body. Perhaps McLaren was taking notes, for this is the 765LT wearing MSO’s new ‘Strata Theme’. It is bold. You can’t say it’s not warning you…

“This is the new BMW M4”. That sentence is one of the easiest ways to break TopGear.com’s servers. If possibly eclipsed by “This is the new BMW M3”. So expect our internet shortly to go into a state of broken squared.

A quick jolt of stats for you. Three-litre turbo engine, in-line six cylinders, with a pair of turbos, one for each three-cylinder half of the engine. Five hundred and three horsepowers in the Competition versions you see here. Eight-speed autobox. Zero to 62mph in less than four seconds.

That’s the acceleration for the rear-drive type. In a few months there will be an optional four-wheel-drive system. A M four-wheel-drive system, no less, which means it lets you prod a button to aim extra torque rearward. Or, at a second prod, all of it. Just in case you’re feeling nuttier than a Topic bar.

Even beneath the unique-to-M paint colours, the design is way out there. Hagen Franke, who sets the cars’ spec and characteristics, says that’s what customers asked for: a greater distance in this generation between the M340i/M440i and the M3/M4. Job done, we’d say.

I put it to Franke that the existence of the M2 must have allowed him to nudge the M3 and M4 further up the tree, with a whole thump of extra power and the 4WD option taking it closer to the big-daddy M5. But no, he says, M3 and M4 buyers are super-loyal and know what they want. They want, broadly, this.

Except some of them want an estate, so they’ll get that in this generation. Is that to stop people migrating to the X3M or Macan? Nope, Franke denies that too. The M3 and M4 just seem to exist in their own bubble. “The Touring is a nice addition.” Same with 4WD. “Knowing our customers pretty well, there are some of them in the snow belt who want all-wheel-drive.”

When the 4 Series showed its – shall we say? – polarising nasal styling, the 3 Series was spared. So at least BMW was offering you a choice. But not this time. For the M-cars, they both get exactly the same gaping nasal passages. Sniff.

In the lands we call abroad, there are actually two engines available. The standard cars get 480bhp and a manual gearbox. But that’s a box that would break under the strain of the Competition versions. So they get an eight-speed auto with their 510bhp and 479lb ft. The M3 Competition and M4 Competition are the only ones available in Britain, so there’s no way we can get the manual.

As with any M car, we can geek out over a whole lot of other modification. It starts with the body, carbon-roofed as before. Its arches balloon over a widened track – the M3 is a whole 75mm wider than a regular 3er.

By: Paul Hornell, 9/22/20

For more cars, visit: https://www.topgear.com/car-news/first-look/new-bmw-m3-and-bmw-m4-have-arrived

Source: https://www.topgear.com/

Not as big a V8 as when the first-gen Cayenne GTS launched (that was a 4.8-litre naturally-aspirated thing), but a sizeable one nonetheless. For this third-generation GTS Porsche has ditched the old 3.6-litre turbo V6, and slotted in a detuned version of the V8 you get in the range-topping Turbo. Cap ‘T’, remember.

This one of course has a turbo, but with a small ‘t’. Two of them, in fact, bolted onto that V8 to produce 454bhp – up 20bhp over the old V6 – and 457lb ft of torque, which is also a smidge more than the old car.

As such, both the Cayenne GTS and Cayenne Coupe GTS (the first time the Coupe gets such a nomenclature) record 0-62mph times of 4.5s – over half a second quicker – and top speeds of 173mph. Both of those stats are possible via Porsche’s Sport Chrono pack. Which you want.

Porsche reckons changes to the V8’s engine cylinder control, direct injection and thermal management system – and a retuned eight-speed tiptronic auto – mean economy figures of 20-21.2mpg are possible. We shall see.

The V8 is matched to a new sports exhaust system – a pair of twin pipes on the SUV, just the two pipes on the Coupe – said to deliver “a highly emotive aural experience”. Because V8.

And because this V8 is the sweet spot between entry-level Cayenne and mad-dog Cayenne Turbo S E-Hybrid (which you can read our review of here), it features 20mm lower suspension on standard steel-springs, adaptive dampers (PASM), torque vectoring, and 21in RS Spyder wheels hiding 390mm discs up front and 358mm on the back. Beefy.

There are options of course. Better brakes. Three-chamber air suspension. Rear-axle steering. Dynamic chassis control. Not listed on this particular sheet is the option to not buy a big 2.2-tonne SUV and get a V8 estate instead…

In any case, the Cayenne has always been a good thing to drive, and while the exterior of this third-gen car hasn’t differed much from the second-generation, GTS models get tinted LED head- and tail-lights, and black air intakes/window trims/exhaust pipes. Inside there’s lots of Alcantara, aluminium, and eight-way adjustable sports seats with deeper side bolsters. Perhaps salad should become your new best friend.

How much for this V8 tank, you cry? In the UK prices start at £85,930 for the Cayenne GTS SUV, and £88,750 for the Cayenne GTS Coupe.

By: Vijay Pattini, June 11, 2020

For more cars, visit: https://www.topgear.com/car-news/suvs/new-porsche-cayenne-gts-and-it-has-v8-again

Source: https://www.topgear.com/

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