You might dimly remember the Noble M600. Come to think of it, Noble itself is hardly a household name, so let's start there. It sprung to prominence in the early Noughties, producing mid-engined sports cars with remarkable chassis fluency. Being a British cottage industry marque it then stuttered before coming back a decade ago with a supercar, the aforementioned M600. Again one with a supple chassis, but this time the twin-turbocharged Ford V6 had given way to twin-turbo 4.4-litre VolvoYamaha V8 and 350bhp had become 650.
It was mighty. The looks were perhaps a touch simplistic, so Noble only ever sold a couple of dozen. Shame. It's one of those cars that's much more than the sum of its not very exotic parts. It was terrifically, thunderously fast, chattered with feedback, but wasn't the sort of car that held your hand. You needed to know what you were doing. And being carbon-bodied it was also expensive to produce.
This story is from the August 2023 edition of BBC Top Gear UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the August 2023 edition of BBC Top Gear UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
ELECTROMECHANIC
Meet the electric restomod that you can create at home it's so easy you can do the conversion in a day, apparently
ALL THE SMALL THINGS
Word is there's no such thing as a decent, small, simple, reasonably priced car these days. Allow TopGear to investigate
VOLKSWAGEN ID.BUZZ 7-SEAT
Volkswagen’s new seven seater ID.Buzz is now the family mover it always should have been
BMW M5
TO THE POINT: THE NEW BMW M5 IS AN excellent car. It's very fast, confident, endlessly configurable and now offers a not inconsequential 40ish miles of electric-only running for happy tax returns.
VAUXHALL GRANDLAND vs FORD EXPLORER
These two brands have been the 'pile it high, sell it cheap' kings of the UK market for decades, but their new core models take a very different tack...
CAR OF THE YEAR - 5 STAR
Yep, Renault's retro-chic new supermini with an optional wicker baguette holder Scoops the grand prix...
MEANWHILE... IN THE FUTURE
Catching rockets with chopsticks isn't the only autonomous tech going on in Elon Musk's world...
KING OF THE HILLS
You wait for one 800+bhp super GT, then two rock up at once. It's the Aston/Ferrari showdown we've all been waiting for...
PACKAGE
What better way to test the Hyundai Santa Fe's SUV-ness than hand delivering TopGear magazine to each and every subscriber in... New Zealand?
MYTH BUSTER
\"THE GOLF GTI WAS THE OG HOT HATCH\"