BECOMING A CHIEF VEHICLE ENGINEER and being responsible for a whole car is a position that only a handful of automotive engineers get to enjoy. To lead a team and deliver a car that also hits or exceeds the brief is therefore a great achievement. To do that three times and then, after delivering each one, go off to do something completely different suggests a restless and healthy curiosity.
That hunger for new challenges has certainly served David Twohig well in the course of his career to date. Three of the major projects he's led have been diverse and, in their own ways, successful: a small crossover that saved a company, a big-selling EV hatchback before EVs became popular, and a sensational lightweight sports car from a firm that was reluctant to see said car through to production.
We meet Twohig at ItalDesign in late May, doing what he does these days: offering his engineering insight and guidance. Usually it's behind the scenes and a water-tight NDA, but this project is different. We're in Turin to see the full-size clay of the all-new Caterham Project V (see page 24) and Twohig has been brought in by Bob Laishley, Caterham's CEO, to offer an expert eye on the project. Laishley and Twohig go back a long way having worked together at Nissan, and Laishley is keen for the benefit of Twohig's broad experience.
For Twohig, born and brought up in Cork, in the south of Ireland, Nissan was his first home as an engineer. Did he always think he'd go into engineering? 'Yeah, I was one of those horribly predictable kids,' he says. 'My dad was a car nut, my older brother was a car nut, my earliest memories are passing spanners to my dad who was fixing some crappy old Ford. My dad was a frustrated engineer. His generation never got a chance to go to college, so I guess he was living that vicariously through me. Being an engineer is all I've wanted to do... apart from a brief spell of wanting to be Tom Cruise in Top Gun when I was 16.'
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Esta historia es de la edición August 2023 de Evo UK.
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BEST BUYS BMW M CARS
THE PERFORMANCE CAR LANDSCAPE WOULD HAVE looked very different over the last five decades without BMW. Its M division, founded in 1972, has produced some of the best driver’s cars ever to hit the road, and in the process has provided a stream of benchmark models for its rivals to chase. In recent years, stricter emissions regulations, downsizing and electrification have seen some of those rival cars falter, yet by and large BMW’s M machines have remained strong. In fact, some rank among the greatest the department has made think of the eCoty-winning M2 CS and M5 CS while others are the only options worth recommending in their respective segments. Price tags have risen with performance, however, putting those latest offerings out of reach for many, but the marque’s popularity means there are numerous earlier M models available on the second-hand market for far more attainable figures. Here are four of our favourites.
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Where best to store some of Toyota’s most prized and valuable racing superstars? Under the wind tunnel at its Cologne HO, of course...
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It develops 819bhp. It has no turbochargers, no hybrid assistance. Ferrari describes it as the most complete GT it's ever made. And it’s so proud of its mighty V12 engine it’s named the whole car after it. This is the 12 Cilindri
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Japan has been responsible for many of our favourite driver's cars of recent decades, but their ancestors are often much less well known. We take a look at where the big manufacturers began their performance car journeys
DEFINITELY. NO MAYBE
Three Japanese performance icons - Lexus LFA, Subaru Impreza 22B and Nissan GT-R. Over three days on some of our favourite roads we explore what makes each uniquely thrilling, but also the car culture that unites them
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F1, P1... and now W1. The next chapter in McLaren's Ultimate Series is the British firm's challenger to the forthcoming new Ferrari hypercar and a £2million, 1257bhp, hybrid-powered, technical tour de force
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One man’s dream to build the perfect Porsche 911 has resulted inthis aaticMously restored and enhanced classic. We delve into the details and take it for a drive
Bentley Continental GT Speed
The new Continental GT is the most powerful Bentley ever, and the beginning of anew plug-in hybrid era for Crewe. But is it still a benchmark grand tourer?
