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Aston Martin DBS After star turns in Casino Royale and the upcoming
Quantum of Solace, you get the impression that the Aston Martin DBS is
trying to muscle Daniel Craig out of the limelight. The flagship of Aston’s
range is powered by the same V12 engine that you get in the DB9 but it has
been tuned to produce an extra 40bhp, giving a total power output of 510bhp.
The doors, bonnet, bootlid and wings are made from carbon fibre, and the
brakes are also carbon. All of this means the £160,000 DBS will crack 191mph
and go from standstill to 60mph in 4.7sec. Should be enough for Bond to
escape the bad guys.
Gumpert Apollo It looks like it was designed and built by a brickie.
Yet its collection of wings, scoops and vents are there for good reason:
Gumpert’s designers have delivered an aerodynamic package that creates so
much downforce that – in theory – at high speed the Apollo could be driven
upside down in a tunnel. Just don’t ask us to prove it. The Apollo has also
asserted its bona fide supercar credentials by smashing the Top Gear test
track lap record with the Stig at the wheel. And that was the “diet” version
of the car, with 690bhp from its twin-turbo Audi V8 engine. The full-fat
Apollo has 789bhp . . .
Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione Prepare to be seduced by an Italian. The
Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione is even more beautiful in the flesh than it
appears in photographs, and as all 500 examples of the £110,000 sports car
have been sold to collectors who will probably tuck them away, out of sight,
the MPH show is one of the few opportunities that petrolheads will get to
see it. Under the bonnet is a 450bhp, 4.7 litre V8 engine, shared with
sister company Maserati. It delivers enough power to give the 8C a top speed
of 181mph and a 0-60mph sprint time of 4.2sec. But it isn’t all about power
and looks: the driving experience is raw enough to set your nerve endings
tingling.
Mercedes McLaren SLR Roadster Clarkson called the rumble of its
supercharged V8 engine “a massive, amplified fart from hell”. The
attention-grabbing acoustics are even more evident in the Roadster, which,
with its roof down, allows the driver to better bask in the glory of that
barnstorming supercar bellow. Built to stimulate sales of the SLR – which
was losing out in the limelight stakes to the likes of Bugatti’s Veyron –
the £350,000 Roadster has a top speed of 206mph – although whether anyone
will reach that speed with the roof down is a moot point. Not that owners
will be particularly interested as they cruise the King’s Road, Rolex on
display along with a permatan and whitened teeth.
Nissan GT-R To the uninitiated, a £52,900 Nissan sounds like a joke.
But to petrolheads in the know, it’s the best money they’ll ever spend. Why?
Because the GT-R will leave sports cars twice its price gasping in its wake.
Until recently, it was the King of the Ring – the fastest production car to
lap the torturous Nürburgring race circuit. Then, predictably, America
responded. The Corvette ZR-1 and then the Viper ACR went out and lapped
faster still. But remove a professional racing driver from the equation,
insert Joe Bloggs who doesn’t know the circuit, mix in a splash of rain and
the four-wheel drive, twin-turbo, 473bhp GT-R hypercar will leave them for
dead.
Shelby GT500 Mustang Super Snake There’s no satisfying some people.
Where the Shelby Mustang GT500 delivers, as its name suggests, a 500bhp
whirlwind of power, the new Super Snake version sinks its fangs in with a
faintly frightening 725bhp. Built to satisfy hardcore Mustang fanatics in
the States, the man behind the legend, Carroll Shelby, proclaims: “I’m going
to hunt Vipers and Corvettes with mine.”
We suspect they’ll need a head start: the Super Snake is so powerful that
Shelby hasn’t been able to calculate performance figures. A word of warning
– this hunk of muscle, which costs £40,129, compared with the “regular”
GT500, priced at £24,235, comes without a warranty or spare tyres.
Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupé Did someone say bling?
Everything about the Phantom Drophead Coupé adheres to the school of thought
that bigger is better. It’s longer, wider, heavier, higher and gaudier than
most things on the road. And that’s before you’ve hit the button that sends
the roof scurrying away like a subservient flunky, allowing the world to get
a better look at who’s behind the wheel of this £305,000 Roller.
Bugatti Veyron What can we say that hasn’t already been said about the
Bugatti Veyron, a car that enabled Clarkson to see off May and Hammond in a
plane during Top Gear’s epic cross-continent race? The car is a triumph of
excess. It has an 8.0 litre engine, 16 cylinders, four turbochargers, seven
gears, 987bhp and 922lb ft of torque. It has four-wheel drive to channel all
that power to the road and an air brake to help slow from its 253mph top
speed. But it doesn’t require a driver with the skill of the Stig to get the
best from it, which explains why owners in Monaco can be seen popping to the
shops for a pint of milk in the dead of night. And it goes without saying
that it costs an obscene amount of money – £839,000. Which means you
probably won’t be buying one any time soon, but at least there’s the chance
at MPH to sample a brief few seconds of life at the wheel of one of the
world’s fastest production cars.
Volvo XC60 Okay, so this isn’t quite the stuff of supercar dreams. But
Volvo’s XC60 is the newest car at the MPH show, and probably the one that
most mums and dads will be interested in, even if they won’t admit it. Volvo
calls the XC60 “something entirely new” but to our minds it’s not all that
different from a BMW X3. Still, it’s better-looking than most school run
wagons, and comes loaded with safety features to protect that precious
cargo. The company is particularly excited about its new City Safety driver
aid, which aims to prevent rear-end impacts between speeds of 9mph and
19mph. It’s a nice idea but do we really want cars that do the driving for
us? Prices start at £24,750 and there will be a choice of two D5 diesel
engines or a T6 turbocharged petrol.
