15 Contenders, Only 1 Winner! Meet The Stars Of Top Gear Speed Week 2023
# Top Gear’s First Ever Cleaner, Greener Speed Week: 15 Incredible Contenders
Hello and welcome to *Top Gear*’s first ever cleaner, greener speed week—where all the carnage comes with less carbon dioxide. The headline might need a bit of work, but you get the idea. We’re here at GoLam Ring in Sweden, one of the world’s most eco-friendly racetracks. You can see all the wind turbines around me; this place runs entirely on renewable energy.
We’re running the petrol engine cars on biofuel—30% less CO2 than regular petrol—and we’re charging up the EVs on renewable energy. I’ve asked the crew to not fart for a week; we’ll see how that goes. You can find out exactly what we did, how we did it, and all the calculations behind it on *topgear.com* and in the latest issue of *Top Gear* magazine. But we need to get cracking.
I want to introduce you to the 15 incredible contenders that we have here for Speed Week—our performance car of the year test. There can only be one winner, but we start here with the big guns: the Lamborghini Stato.
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## The Lamborghini Stato
It is a jacked-up off-road rally raid version of the V Hurrican—it’s the last ever V10 Hurrican variant, in fact. What is it? Well, it’s a reaction to the fact that people don’t just want more and more power and more and more performance; they want something a bit different, that makes them laugh, that’s more enjoyable, that’s more accessible.
I’ve actually driven this thing in California, off-road and on track—it works very nicely on both. You get all the noises and sensations that you get with the normal Hurrican, but it can just *biff* about on loose surfaces like a rally car. Sensational stuff.
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## The Gen Beta Formula E Car
Moving on to something potentially even more serious—this is a proper bonafide race car. It’s a Gen 3 Formula E car, but it’s actually not any Gen 3 car; this is called the Gen beta. It’s a development of the Gen 3 car—it’s been unlocked, and it’s got more power: about 536 brake horsepower, which is almost 70 horsepower more than the standard car that they’re racing at the moment.
This is basically a rolling laboratory—what could come next for Formula E? It doesn’t weigh very much; that’s quite a lot of power. And we get to drive it now. I know a lot of people think that Formula E is a baby formula—it’s, you know, a toddler compared to Formula 1. Well, we’re going to find out just how serious these things are to drive.
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## The Renault 500e
Speaking of toddlers—this is the *Renault 500e*, an electric hot hatch. It’s only got 149 horsepower; it’s only got a little diddy 42kW battery, range of about 160 miles. It is to be fair, a second lap quicker around F’s test track than the old petrol-powered 695—it’s not slow.
But the big party piece on this? You’ve probably seen it on your social media feeds: the fact that it pumps out sweet V8 music from a speaker around the back of the car. It’s a little bit ridiculous—really, a gimmick too far. Who knows if it’s going to be outpaced and outsized by this enormous track? Probably—but it looks quite funny, right?
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## The McLaren R2
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that the gestation of this car has been… well, a little bit troubling. There were some problems at launch—they’ve had issues building it; supply chains, blah blah blah. It was supposed to be here at Speed Week last year; it’s here now.
And it’s a *new McLaren*—a proper new McLaren from the ground up. I’m slightly disappointed it doesn’t look more radical—and I’m doubly disappointed that they sent us one in black with a black interior. A bright color would have been much better, but if we focus on the technical stuff… this is very exciting indeed.
It’s got a 3-liter twin-turbo V6 and an electric motor; so you get 577 horsepower from the engine alone—and then another 94 from the electric motor, which is between the engine and gearbox. The gearbox by the way? An 8-speed now, not a seven-speed, because you’ve got the e-motor to take care of reverse.
Look, McLaren’s handle brilliantly this weighs less than the 296 GTB—which is its big rival—less power but is it a sweeter handling car? Eventually, we’re going to find out.
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## The Lotus Emira
Speaking of sweet handling: *Lotus* the Emira. So, this is, on paper at least, the entry-level Emira—the four-cylinder version. You’ll remember that we’ve already driven the V6; this is the inline-4. Except it’s not any old 4-cylinder engine—it’s the Turbo 2-liter nut job from the AMG A45.
In the AMG, you get over 400 horsepower here—you only get 360 horsepower, I think that’s probably because they wanted to keep it underneath the V6 in the lineup; but it should be just the right amount of power for this chassis.
A hot hatch engine in a baby supercar—yeah, some people aren’t going to like it. But look: it’s a Lotus—it’s about how it drives. This thing, by the way, is the first edition over £80,000; so there’s two ways of looking at it—it’s either a bargain supercar because it does look like one, it looks fantastic; or it’s a very expensive hot hatch with the engine at the wrong end. Let’s keep moving.
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## The AERIAL Atom 4 R
Oh yes—probably the maddest car here: this is called the *AERIAL Atom 4 R*. It is a much more serious version of the *Atom*; so it’s got the same *Civic Type R* 2-liter turbo engine in the back—but boosted up to 400 horsepower.
You can get one of these by the way for about £78,000. This one has pretty much every single option attached to it—so it costs about £40,000; but the options are good: Olin dampers, you’ve got a Qua six-speed sequential gearbox, you’ve got this carbon wing on the front and the rear, the side pods, the wheel arches—it’s a very very serious piece of kit.
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## The Porsche 911 Dhar
That’s right—we have a *911 Dhar* and a Hurrican Stato in the same place; so again: this is Porsche answering the same question—um, that Lamborghini did with the Stato: how can we find new ways of tactility and fun without just adding go-loads more power into our car?
This has a 50mm higher ride height; it’s based on the *Carrera 4 GTS*; and then you can jack it up by another 30mm for… according to Porsche, ambitious off-roading. And we’ll see how ambitious we can get this week—but it’s based on yeah, carera for GTS.
3-liter twin-turbo Flat-6: 475 horsepower—look out for this one going sideways everywhere.
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## The Toyota GR86
So, this is our reigning sports car of the year in the 2022 *Top Gear* Awards—but we couldn’t get one in time for Speed Week last year; so we’ve got one along now. What is it? Well, it’s a car that takes the formula from the GT86 and just makes it a bit better in every way: so the 2-liter engine now 2.4 liters—you’ve got over 230 horsepower, bit more torque; the six-speed manual gearbox is just a little bit more slick.
This is absolutely not a fast car—it’s a car that’s affordable and accessible and designed for simple rear-drive fun and cheeky little skids. Looking forward to having a proper go in that.
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## The Alpine A110 R
Then we get to the *Alpine*—the *A110 R*. So, this is the more hardcore-focused version of the lightweight Alpine A110—and they’ve gone quite big haven’t they on this? So carbon pretty much everywhere: bonnet, roof—you’re there’s no rear window anymore; it’s just a complete sheet of carbon back there.
Carbon wing—we’ve got carbon wheels—um different wheels at the rear to the ones you get at the front—not sure how I feel about that aesthetically but you can’t argue with the weight savings: it weighs about 1,080 odd kilog this car—which is not a lot; but you don’t get any more power. It’s still 300 horsepower same as the A110s from the 1.8-liter turbo.
My problem with this car is the Alpine was designed to be this lightweight sweet-handling little sports car—um, but now this thing costs £90,000; it was already quite expensive in the first place; was it better for them to just leave it alone? We’ll find out.
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## The BMW M2
I’m sorry if your monitor at home has just shattered into tiny little pieces from looking at the front of that car—it’s not a good-looking car. Some people say it’s growing on them—yeah, I question their sanity. What is it? It’s the most accessible, affordable, smallest M car you can buy. The last M2 they sold 60,000 of; so this has got quite a lot to live up to.
But it’s—but it’s a serious piece of kit—it’s based on the same platform as the M3 and the M4 under there: 3-liter straight-6 Twin Turbo—454 horsepower. So you get the same amount power in this—the standard M2 before any versions come along—as you got in the old M2cs; and they’ll do you an automatic gearbox or if you pay them extra, I think it’s £5 or £600 quid extra—you can have a manual gearbox. More money for DIY gearshift—that seems a bit backward to me but let’s not argue because they’re only going to sell apparently according to BMW one in 10 M2s will be bought with a manual gearbox—but they still did it; and that requires some celebration because in this day and age—front engined rear-wheel drive non-hybrid manual sports car—and it’s brand new.
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## The Porsche 911 GT3 RS
This is well the biggest cliche in the book—it’s a race car for the road. It’s the *new 911 GT3 RS* by the way; but actually, this is more serious than Eddie race car I’ve seen recently—they’ve basically taken a GT3 car and then just gone absolutely berserk with the aerodynamics, with the technology.
The active AO: so this thing produces 860 kg of downforce at 177 mph—but crucially it’s got very clever active flaps at the front and a DRS style wing at the back—so you can bleed off that downforce and at the same time they can keep that perfect downforce balance: 70% of the rear, 30% at the front—and that’s what you want when you’re bombing around a track like this—predictability in the handling.
Interestingly it doesn’t have loads of power; so a 4-liter Flat-6 revs to 9,000 RPM—but only 518 brake horsepower—which in this day and age is not a lot—and it just shows that if you sort the chassis out, you sort everything else out—you can create a *otherworldly fast car*; you don’t just need loads and loads of power sometimes—less power is better.
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## The Honda Civic Type R
This is our reigning 2022 *Top Gear* car of the year—so probably an early favorite for this test. Bit like the GR86—it takes the old Honda Civic Type R which we also loved, which was also a *Top Gear* car of the year—and just improves it all: same engine, same gearbox, same chassis—but just makes each slightly better.
324 horsepower you’ve got now—and one of the sweetest manual gear shifts in the business—definitely some of the best seats that you can get on any car anywhere; proof that the hot hatch—the front-drive hot hatch, manual gearbox formula—still works.
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## The Subaru WRX STI 2 BST-230
So, this is called the *Pulstar 2 BST-230*—I hope I got that right. It’s a special edition of the Pulstar 2 with a load more power: 467 breakaway, I think it’s got about 60 horsepower more—twin motor; but basically you’ve got uprated brakes, you’ve got very fancy ol suspension with remote reservoir dampers—we’ll get a shot of this bonnet open a little bit later and there’s some serious damper porn going on under there.
I think it may be a little bit lacking in excitement given the lineup that’s down there—and a few that are still to come—but hey ho—it’s good to have a Swedish representative.
You’ll notice we don’t have a *Kix* egg despite our best efforts—um so little Poar, you are representing Sweden this is a home match for you right? Another BMW: the M3 Touring—we’ve got an M3 Touring at last; I mean, we must have been begging BMW for this one for ages—and they’ve eventually delivered.
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## The BMW M3 Touring
The basics: 503 horsepower under there—500 liters of boot space at the back, L not to like 1500 liters of boot space actually if you fold down the back seats—it’s a fantastic car; only comes in four-wheel drive. I tell you what—I like especially is unfortunately you are looking at that grill at the front end—but now we’ve got an excuse to look at the back end instead—and this car from the rear when you’re following around the track—mah, it looks fabulous.
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## The Hyundai Ionic 5N
Last car on the lineup: car number 15—the *Hyundai Ionic 5N*. So, we’re very lucky; this is a pre-production prototype—we are the first media in the world to get our hands on this. What is it? Well, it’s sort of been branded a hyper hatch—and I get that it’s an electric hot hatch; but it’s got 600 horsepower in fact—I found out today it’s got 641 horsepower if you hit a button with the most embarrassing name in the automotive world—“Enrin boost” hit that and you get another 41 horsepower.
And this car, what makes it interesting is all the electronic trickery that they’ve built into it—it’s got an end drift optimizer; it’s got a torque kick mode which sort of synthesizes a torque kick—a clutch kick rather when you’re when you’re trying to get a car sideways—and it’s also got a completely synthesized 8-speed paddle shift gearbox—but it’s a single speed electric car.
Fascinating stuff—it’s either going to go badly wrong or it’s going to potentially change the game and show us the way for the future. So, there we have it: 15 contenders—quite the lineup. I think I want to get out there and drive them—I’m ready; Stig’s ready wherever he is; haven’t seen him for a while—let’s do this!
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