Top Gear Magazine

Here at Top Gear Magazine, we take customer service seriously. So seriously, in fact, that to celebrate our SUV of the Year, we decided to hand-deliver our latest issue to every single subscriber in… New Zealand. All of them. From the misty peaks of the North Island to the windswept southern tip of the South, Rowan Horncastle and Ollie Marriage threw Hyundai’s Santa Fe at every sheep-strewn, pothole-laden, postcard-perfect road New Zealand had to offer. The result? A tale of adventure, exhaustion, and a small existential crisis about how far people will go for good content. In this episode of the Top Gear Magazine Podcast, Rowan Horncastle and Ollie Marriage spill the tea on their utterly bonkers Kiwi road trip, including what happens when you test an SUV on roads seemingly designed for hobbits. Spoiler: it’s not all smooth sailing. Buckle up for tales of adventure, chaos, and quite possibly the longest test drive in history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jaguar, a 102-year-old British car company, has just revealed a new concept car: the Type 00. Nothing unusual there – car companies frequently create eccentric models to preview their future offerings. However, what Jaguar has done has sparked a massive, fiery online debate that has spilled over into politics, the evening news, and the culture wars. In this episode of the Top Gear Magazine Podcast, Rowan Horncastle, Jason Barlow, Ollie Kew, and Ollie Marriage discuss the new car and the controversial rebrand that has caused the internet to erupt in a big way. What does it mean for Jaguar – and for British car culture? Buckle up as the team dives into the drama, debates the design, and has a few laughs along the way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On this episode of the Top Gear Magazine Podcast, Christian von Koenigsegg gives us a full tour of his brand new factory. This meaty conversation brings in plenty of juicy topics, including topping 300mph in the near future and why he thought of the Tourbillon name before Bugatti... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices