The F8 Spider is another sensational supercar from Ferrari. Its V8 engine is the star of the show, followed closely by the stunning shape that still manages to look beautiful while including clever aerodynamics. This is a car that will flatter and entertain in equal measure, incorporating tech seamlessly into the driving experience. The n-car tech is a let down, though.
Some time in the 2030s, you won’t be able to buy a new Ferrari (or any other car) in the UK with an internal combustion engine. Incredible, eh? And sad. In fact, this F8 Spider may well be one of the last Ferraris we see without some sort of electrified powertrain.
Not that we should be worried. Many of us decried the arrival of turbo power when it was added to Ferrari’s mighty V8, but the engine sitting in the back of the F8 Spider is one of the best the company has ever made – and in the words of Bananarama, that’s really saying something.
It’s also sitting in the back of one of the prettiest Ferraris to have come out of the Maranello gates for a while. And thankfully for us this one landed in the UK, allowing us to sample the latest Ferrari over here – and what a Ferrari it is. It would be wrong to describe the F8 as an all-new car and unfair to call it a facelift.
Compared to the 488 it replaces, it’s lighter, more powerful and thoroughly reworked, although there are some elements that are carried over. It also features more technology than ever, all designed to improve performance and the overall experience. By and large – in spite of the tech having names dreamt up by the marketing guys rather than the engineering department – it works, improving the experience and making the performance even more accessible.
This is a Ferrari that will flatter your driving; thrilling you without scaring you. And in the Spider it can be done with the roof down to enhance the whole sensation, and get you closer to the glorious sound of the V8 sitting just behind you.
The balletic folding hard-top will disappear in just 14 seconds – like the doors, it’s carried over from the 488 Spider – while the rear glass window can also be lowered (even when the roof’s up) for added aural pleasure. Other than that, all is very much as is in the F8 Tributo, starting with the reworked twin-turbo 3.9-litre V8.
A prod of the red start button fires it excitedly into life, but that’s nothing compared to the excitement of sitting on an open road with its 711bhp and 770Nm of torque under your right foot.
The on-board technology impresses: Adaptive Performance Launch controls the amount of torque delivered depending on grip levels. Ferrari’s Variable Torque Management also features, ramping up the torque levels as you fly through the gears.
The quick, slick reactions of the gearbox as it slices through the ratios with just a change in engine note to let you know when it swaps cogs is as impressive as the lack of turbo lag. You can leave the gearbox in auto mode or, for maximum fun, take control via the perfectly positioned paddles behind the steering wheel.
If you dare to put your foot flat to the floor and let the car take care of things, it feels theme park-fast as it charges forward, accompanied by one of the best exhaust notes in a new car today. It’s noticeably fruitier than the first iteration of the turbo V8 in the 488 Spider.
Straight-line speed, with 0-62mph disappearing in 2.9 seconds, is astonishing, but so is the F8 Spider’s ability to work with you through the corners. There’s a huge amount of mechanical grip available, but there’s also Ferrari’s Dynamic Enhancer System, now in 6.1 form, that works with Side Slip Control to adjust brake pressure at the callipers as you accelerate out of corners. As the name suggests, this allows a very controllable amount of slip. It won’t take care of steering corrections – you’ll still need your wits about you if the power you apply is too much for the grip available – so it’s not going to turn you into a drifting god. But, crucially, the electronics will get you from corner to corner quicker as you floor the throttle, click through the gearbox, dab on the brakes, and turn into the next bend.
The steering wheel has a smaller-diameter rim than the 488’s, while the steering itself is full of feel and quick to react, if not quite as delicate as you’ll find in a Porsche or McLaren. The brakes, however, are hugely impressive, with nice pedal feel.
It all adds up to offer mere mortals a taste of performance that they just wouldn’t have been able to achieve even a few years ago. If the job of a Ferrari engineer is to make ever more performance available to its customers in safety, providing them with more fun per mile, it’s job done. Brilliantly.
What also impresses is how content the F8 Spider is to pootle around. It’s easy to drive, with excellent forward visibility and slick, slow-speed changes from the gearbox in auto mode. There’s even a bumpy road setting, which is supposed to take the edge off the firm ride – especially useful in the UK. But the ride is fairly well honed, and we didn’t notice all that much difference when we hit the button to soften the suspension.
The other thing a Ferrari has to do is to look stunning and, although beauty is subjective, in our eyes this is one of Ferrari’s prettiest ever V8s. Especially so because that beauty comes hand-in-hand with clever aerodynamics. As with the F8 Tributo, the front end of the Spider ushers in a new look for Ferrari: slimmer LED headlights sit within the S-Duct aerodynamics that use Ferrari’s racecar knowledge for maximum efficiency. At the back, the spoiler is bigger and there’s a welcome return to twin circular rear lights – a retro look brought bang up-to-date.
If there’s one letdown, it’s with the interior. There’s no faulting the quality, but the dash layout harks back a couple of generations (witness the tiny navigation/Apple CarPlay displays), and the usability of the controls leaves a lot to be desired.
And while F1 drivers might like their steering wheels to be loaded with buttons, having controls for the indicators, lights, wipers, suspension, plus the start button and Manettino, all on there is a bit too much for the rest of us.
A huge SUV may seem an odd thing to recommend these days, but if you’re in the market for a non-electrified Cayenne, this is the one we’d go for. It has that great duality that you find in the best performance SUVs, being able to perform as a comfortable cruiser and, with the flick of a switch, an entertainer. Just watch yourself on the options list.
To those who know their Porsches, GTS models tend to be a bit special. They aren’t usually as flat-out fast as Turbo editions, but they occupy a useful space below them, delivering extra performance and handling involvement that appeal to keen drivers more than pure speed freaks.
With this in mind, the GTS editions of the German brand’s SUVs have arguably the biggest challenge: to deliver extra agility under a body that’s still much taller and heavier than a regular sports car’s. And that’s what makes cars like this latest Cayenne GTS an interesting proposition.
A new-generation GTS has been missing from the latest Cayenne range until now, and it marks quite a departure for the variant. Out goes the previous edition’s twin-turbocharged V6 engine and in comes a 4.0-litre twin-turbocharged V8 – closer to the powertrain that featured in the GTS before 2015. Power jumps by 20bhp, to 454bhp, and the motor’s maximum torque is 20Nm greater, at 620Nm.
That brings some pretty stonking performance figures, none of which could be described as slow. We’re trying the Coupé version of the GTS here, and if you spec it with the optional Sport Chrono pack, as most people do, you’ll have a jumbo five-seat SUV that can cover 0-62mph in just 4.5 seconds, before going on to a top speed of 168mph.
Underneath, the GTS gets a 20mm lower ride height and retuned Porsche Active Suspension Management (PASM) adaptive dampers. There’s also Torque Vectoring, which applies the brakes on individual wheels when cornering to improve the turn-in response.
You’re unlikely to feel this from the off, but the GTS will impress in other ways. The V8 is smooth and hilariously untroubled by life, so it’s barely registering 1,500rpm as you drive along a motorway at 70mph. This is a refined car when it wants to be, with only the understandable tyre roar from our car’s 22-inch wheels (21s are standard) interrupting the serenity. It’s comfortable, too. You’ll be in no doubt that you’re in a car ultimately set up for body control, but there’s a softer edge to the ride that goes a long way to soothing the worst road imperfections. Factor in nicely weighted steering and a smooth-shifting, intelligent eight-speed automatic gearbox and you have a fine long-distance cruiser.
Then you find a fast, flowing back road, stick the GTS into Sport Plus mode, and it becomes an entirely different beast. The body control tightens up, the gearshift and responses improve, and it’s alarmingly happy to cope with being thrown from side to side.
The way this 2.2-tonne SUV changes direction is little short of freakish – more impressive, if anything, than the manner in which it gains velocity. And all the while, the V8 soundtrack has a fabulous bassy tone – not AMG crisp, perhaps, but not far off it – with lots of crackles and pops on the overrun.
Is it as much fun to drive as a 911? Of course not. But it’s hard to think of many other SUVs of this size that would offer even this level of involvement and enjoyment.
Of course, while the driving experience may shrink around you, the metal doesn’t. You might find yourself meeting oncoming traffic and realising that you’re filling more than half of the road. The Cayenne is a very big car on the roads where it comes alive.
Inside, Porsche has only dabbled with what was already a beautifully finished, logically laid-out cabin. You get bespoke sports seats and Alcantara trim on the headliner, doors and armrests, but that’s really about the height of it, unless you count a smattering of GTS logos and some new colour accents.
You can go crazy on the options list to make your Cayenne GTS more individual, but we’d urge restraint unless you really do have a bottomless pit of money to draw upon. Our test car’s two main box-ticks – the lightweight pack (including a carbon fibre roof) and the excellent carbon-ceramic brakes – accounted for more than £12,000 alone, and the price as tested was north of £123,000. Be careful out there, people.
The BMW M3 remains a driver’s car of excellent quality. BMW has sensitively and thoughtfully applied new technology to the M3 throughout its generations, without ever going overboard. These new cars continue that trend, while also blending comfort with their explosive performance.
Familiar and immediately grin inducing - that’s exactly how the first few corners in the new BMW M3 feel, and while that’s precisely what we’ve come to expect over five generations of Munich’s performance saloon icon, M Division’s engineers have once again been able to add just a little bit more to the recipe. This is despite the prototype we’re driving - alongside a similarly near-finished M4 - being only 90 per cent complete, according to BMW M Development Manager Dirk Häcker.
Under the bonnet, a familiar tale is played out in the form of 3.0-litre, turbocharged straight-six power. But this engine is new. It’s the S58 used in the latest X3 M and X4 M SUVs, but its proper home is right here in the M3, where it plays out its typical, high-revving BMW M characteristics to the fullest. In the normal M3 it develops 473bhp, while the new M3 Competition - likely the only model we’ll get in Britain - steps things up to 503bhp.
A six-speed manual gearbox is found on the standard cars, while Competition variants are equipped with an eight-speed automatic, not reliant on dual-clutch technology but instead using torque converter tech. That’s unconventional in modern performance cars.
Häcker cannot reveal complete details about the chassis work just yet, but teases some of the changes. Compared with the regular 3 Series, the M3 gains a stiffer front axle, new electronically controlled dampers, and a reworked locking rear differential.
On base M3 and M4 models, the wheels are 18-inches at the front and 19-inches at the rear, growing to 19 and 20-inches respectively on Competition models and shod on Michelin Pilot Sport 4S rubber. Naturally, carbon ceramic brakes are optional. Both our M4 and M3 Competition prototypes are rear wheel drive. The oft rumoured four-wheel drive version? "An M xDrive is coming, but only later," says Häcker.
Our time with the cars is short, but enough to get under the skin of both. The M4 is up first, and the first thing you notice, compared with the last M4 and 4 Series, is the seating position - it’s much lower than before, and feels more purposeful. We set everything to Sport Plus, but the first thing that springs out isn’t oversteer, but turn-in. It feels like the front axle is shod with slicks, and the nose of the car is far more aggressive and keen to fire into the apex than before.
The engine is a known quantity from our experience of it in the X3 and X4 M, and here the linearity of response and climb to its 7,200rpm is all the more enticing, with a proper six-speed manual gearbox only adding to the sensation. Gentle oversteer is easily controllable, and while BMW has not confirmed a weight for the M4, it certainly feels lighter than before.
The M3 will probably be around 100kg heavier than the M4, but here - in Competition spec, mind you - the sensations it delivers are extremely similar, with no trace of additional weight detectable on turn in. The gearbox is the most interesting aspect though. While the slick shifting six-speed manual delivers maximum engagement, the eight-speed torque converter automatic is not a flop, with wonderfully rapid fire upshifts with seemingly no loss of drive between gears.
Despite the demands of regulators, and the petrol particulate filters equipped within the new exhaust system, the M3 hasn’t totally lost its voice. Trademark six-cylinder bark is there, but looking at the size of the tailpipes, we’d expect a bit more volume and crackle. Perhaps that will come when BMW completes the final 10 per cent of the newcomer’s development programme.
Porschehas unveiled an entry-level, rear-wheel drive version of the all-electricTaycanfor the Chinese market. It’s available to pre-order now, with prices starting from ¥880,000 (roughly £100,000).
The entry-level Porsche Taycan is powered by a single permanent-magnet motor mounted on the rear axle. The motor has a maximum output of 469bhp with Porsche’s overboost function activated, providing a 0–62mph time of 5.4 seconds and a top speed of 143mph.
Buyers have their choice of two battery packs. As standard, the entry-level Taycan comes with a 79.2kWh battery pack, which Porsche says provides an NEDC range of 257 miles. The same 93.4kWh battery pack from the flagship four-wheel drive variant is available as an optional extra, which raises the car’s claimed NEDC range to 304 miles.
The base-model Taycan comes with a domestic 11kW wallbox charger, which should fully recharge the larger battery pack in around nine hours. The car’s platform is also compatible with commercially available DC fast chargers, which allows both batteries to recover an 80 per cent charge in just 30 minutes.
To help keep the entry-level Taycan’s starting price low, Porsche has stripped away some of the flagship car’s chassis technology. So, it comes with smaller 19-inch alloy wheels, slightly smaller brakes and steel springs rather than air suspension – although the latter is available as an optional extra.
Porsche has retained the range-topping model’s electronically controlled dampers, torque vectoring system and regenerative braking system, which the company says can perform most everyday braking functions without assistance from the car’s traditional disc braking system.
Inside, Chinese buyers get a pair of 14-way electrically adjustable sports seats, dual-zone air conditioning, a panoramic glass roof and three digital screens for the car’s gauge cluster, infotainment functions and climate control system. Also, thanks to the removal of the front electric motor, the base-model Taycan’s front luggage compartment swells to 491 litres.
The base-model Taycan’s options list is even more extensive than the flagship car’s, with buyers being offered an extra touchscreen for the front passenger, seven extra body colours, a choice of alloy wheel designs, a range of upholstery finishes and fresh head-up display, which makes its first appearance on this new entry-level variant.
Porsche is yet to confirm whether the new entry-level Taycan will be sold in the UK. But, given the growing appetite for all-electric vehicles, it’s likely that Porsche will introduce it to the European market later in the year.
What do you make of the new entry-level Porsche Taycan? Let us know in the comments section below…
