AC CARS
AROUND SINCE 1901
NOW OWNED BY South African-born businessman Alan Lubinsky
KNOWN FOR Going bankrupt occasionally, and collaborating with Carroll Shelby for the V8 AC Cobra
It stood for 'Auto Carriers' originally. AC didn't come to worldwide attention until the Carroll Shelby came asking for a sports car to drop a V8 into for racing. The infamous 196mph motorway test led to today's 70mph speed limit. Now it'll sell you restomods and an EV.
ARIEL MOTOR COMPANY
AROUND SINCE 2000 (though the Ariel name appeared on bicycles as far back as the 19th century)
NOW OWNED BY Still a British owned business!
KNOWN FOR Warp-speed scaffolding with nutty Honda engines
Simon Saunders' genius Hondapropelled scaffolding is genuinely the closest thing you can get to a road-going go-kart, and famously made a right mess of Clarkson's face when it starred on TopGear back in December 2004. Three generations of Atom later (including a wild 500bhp V8 edition), Ariel went off-piste with the magnificent Nomad, realising all our life-size Tamiya RC car fantasies. The little Somerset outfit now has a waiting list Ferrari would be proud of, and continues to work on a near-1,200bhp ‘HiPercar...
BAC
AROUND SINCE 2009
NOW OWNED BY Neill and lan, the Briggs brothers
KNOWN FOR Single-seater half-tonne missiles with exquisite build quality.
The Briggs Automotive Company (though it could stand for Bats**t Angry Car) will sell you a true single-seater experience for £170k. Mono R features stronger graphene-embedded carbon bodywork, less weight, and more power 343bhp pushing just 555kg. Plenty.
Denne historien er fra June 2022-utgaven av Top Gear.
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Denne historien er fra June 2022-utgaven av Top Gear.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
HEAD TO HEAD VANTAGE vs 911 TURBO
For as long as we can remember the Porsche 911 has been the default best sports car money can buy. Does the new Aston Vantage represent a changing of the guard?
BOSS LEVEL:PART TWO
In a world exclusive, three makers of the world's most powerful hypercars are cordially invited... to drive each other's creations
THE THEORY 0F EVOLUTION
Ridged bladder seats, an inflating steering wheel and an AI track day coach... has Lotus hit on the supercar's future, or gone mad?
Koenigsegg Jesko Attack
The Jesko Attack drives like a conventional supercar. Brakes like one, turns like one, grips like one. But it doesn't accelerate like one.
STIC LAPS are back!
It's a 1.75-mile figure of eight on an old Canadian Air Force base just south of Guildford. Hardly Monza, or the Mulsanne straight, and never in a million years - you'd think a place that would become one of the most sought after performance benchmarks in the motoring world.
URBAN OUTWITTERS
Does the solution to city motoring lie in designs from the past with powertrains from the future? TopGear goes in search of answers... at rush hour
FUTURE FERRARIS
If you thought Ferrar's past was colourful, wait until you see what it's cooking up next. The future's bright, the future's rosso
DIRTY DOZEN
Ferrari's new super GT makes no secrets about what's under the bonnet, but can it swallow five countries in just a few hours? Better get on with it...
MYTH BUSTER
\"ADAPTIVE DAMPERS ALWAYS NEED TO ADAPT\"
The S2000 from a parallel universe
Meet Evasive Motorsports’ Honda S2000R, the car the Japanese firm should have built itself
