Sync by fant0m www.addic7ed.com
Welcome to a brand-new series of Fifth Gear.
The show for real drivers, with real drivers.
We're at the inner sanctum of Ferrari in Maranello in Italy.
And this was Enzo Ferrari's house.
And that is the brand-new 458 Italia.
And I'll be testing this 202mph supercar in just a minute.
Listen to that noise!
Also, in the show, Tiff and Vicki are on the absolute limit
in a quest to find the ultimate hot-hatch.
Do you want me to drive?
Jonny's on a mission to prove the old-school Mini
is one of the greatest city cars ever made
with one of our famous crash tests.
And we've got a world exclusive inside line
on McLaren's brand-new supercar,
thanks to the only TV interview with the man who's driven it: Lewis Hamilton.
There is one car at the minute that everybody wants a piece of.
And I mean everybody. And that includes me.
Here's the reasons why.
Ten seconds to launch.
9,000 RPM.
Eight cylinders.
Seven-speed gearbox.
Six pot calipers.
570 horsepower.
4.5 litres.
Three exhausts.
Two seats...and one driver.
Shall we?
It's the Ferrari 458 Italia.
The harder, faster replacement for the F430.
It costs £170,000.
A serious price tag for a very serious car.
This car will do just over 200 miles an hour,
will get to 62 in just over three seconds.
Let's fill the hills of Italy
with this amazing V8 sound.
Now, for me, one of the most amazing bits about this car
is the double clutch, seven-speed gearbox.
Ferrari say that the shift time is zero,
with no power loss to the rear wheels whilst going up the gearbox.
I'll show you. So, third gear now. Ready?
Fourth...fifth.
It's just like a switch.
And also down. It's just fantastic.
Ferrari are keen to point out that
this car has really moved the supercar game on.
Every aspect has been analysed and re-engineered.
So take these turtle flippers just here.
This is the wing section.
At low speed... The radiator's behind here.
At low speed, the engine needs a lot of air to keep it cool.
But at high speed it doesn't cos there's loads going in there.
So what Ferrari have done is they've made this deform
so when the air comes in, this wing gets pushed down,
it stagnates this area here
which, when the air comes in, it then gets diverted under the car,
gives it more downforce and, importantly, less drag.
And the engineering detail continues on the inside.
The dashboard screens look more like a computer games console,
whilst the wipers and indicator stalks
have been replaced with F1-style buttons on the steering wheel.
The 458 has also got a bigger brain,
so its traction control gets you out of corners
about 30% quicker than its predecessor, the F430.
I'm running in the race setting now.
There are safety toys and electronic intervention,
but it lets you drive the car. You can slide the car around,
you can still have fun, but safe in the knowledge
that it's not going to spit you off.
That said, there is quite a difference from race to all toys off.
It really comes alive, it turns into a little bit more of a beast.
You know, the roads are wet. It's not a nice day,
but I'm brimming with confidence. It just feels stunning in your hands.
The steering's very quick.
It's got amazing grip.
Carbon brakes as standard. It's just a beautifully engineered bit of kit.
You know, there are two sides to this car.
We're at what, 50mph now, fifth gear.
Let's drop it to seventh.
The valve closes in the exhaust,
we'll put the soft suspension setting on,
we'll even pop it into auto.
Look at that. Quiet, compliant on the road.
Not too noisy.
I'm bored with that now.
Let's make some more noise.
I'm a lucky bloke. I get to drive some amazing bits of kit.
And I'm not kidding you when I say this is the best car I've ever driven
by a good way, you know.
It is just amazing.
So, what's it to be, then?
School fees or 458 Italia?
Not everybody can afford a Ferrari supercar.
But these days you don't need to spend big to get a quick car.
The latest batch of hot-hatches are so powerful,
they're more like hyper-hatches.
But which is best?
Well, we gave Tiff and Vick the three fastest to find out.
We've got the 301bhp Ford Focus RS - the most powerful hot-hatch on sale.
Then there's the Volkswagen Scirroco R,
the most expensive at £28,500.
And finally there's the Renault Sport Megane 250 Cup,
the cheapest and least powerful here.
The quickest lap time wins and to make sure the times are comparable,
Tiff will take the wheel while I keep tabs on him.
The £28,000 Focus, the heaviest of our cars, is up first.
It's incredible. It's got more power, more torque than the others,
and it's got a Revo-Knuckle front suspension,
which should help... Help!
Where are you going? It's not helping much now.
Here's the start line. Get that stopwatch going.
A Revo-Knuckle?! It's similar to the Renault Megane's...
Got it! PerfoHub, so basically it locks down the front
and it hunkers down the front end,
and helps reduce torque steer so you can tuck it into the corners nicely.
Oh, get that apex.
It's a real driver's car.
I don't see the others beating this on the track.
- Okay, here we go. - Stop the clock, set the pace for the Ford Focus at...
1:27.91.
So can the £23,000, 247hp Renault Sport Megane beat that?
It's over 50hp down compared to the Ford,
but it's nearly 100 kilos lighter.
I don't know if it's going to be quicker or not. It's not as nice to drive.
Turn in and it understeers a bit, but when I lift off mid-corner,
the front's washing more than the Ford.
You can almost hear the understeer.
The diff almost works too well on the turn in. Yeah.
But I think it's got fantastic acceleration and grip on the way out.
- That's the thing. - Oh, referee!
Do you want me to drive?
They're very different cars. Very different. But which is the quickest?
1:26.42, which is quicker by a second and a half.
No! Are you sure? Yep.
You see? You can't always feel speed.
Finally, the 261hp Volkswagen Scirroco R.
It's more powerful than the Renault and only slightly heavier.
But will it handle as well?
Curves, curves. It doesn't adjust like the Ford did.
And doesn't grip like the Renault did
so it's almost got the worst of both worlds.
Anyway, the finish line comes. It's the time that counts.
1:28.04, which means it's last.
Doesn't even beat the Ford. Doesn't beat the Ford,
so the Renault Megane is the winner. By a long way.
The 247bhp Renault Sport Megane
is undoubtedly our favourite hyper-hatch.
It's so good, we wondered if it could beat something
from a totally different league.
So we thought we'd give it a tougher challenge
against this Porsche Boxster.
A two-lap dogfight against one of our favourite handling cars.
It is going to be a stern test.
And I actually reckon the grunt and grip of this Renault
is going to be a match for that Porsche.
And I never thought I'd say that.
Oh, off the start. Oh, bit of wheelspin.
Tiffy's got the lead.
Let's get right on his tail. A little wiggle on.
His car's definitely got some more traction off the line
and out of the slower corners.
Into this piff-paff now. Go on.
Whoa, we've got a bit of oversteer.
We're potentially in real trouble now.
Which gives me the perfect opportunity to slip up his inside.
Oh, that Porsche looks good through this long corner.
High speed... It looks very poised.
Oh, sideways, sideways.
That's the mistake I was looking for.
That's going to let him through...
...which is exactly what's happened.
Can't get any quicker. I've got understeer turning here.
I can't get it into the apex.
I can still out-brake her. I'm sure I can. I can, I can, I can. I can't.
Once again she's going sideways
and I can get that extra speed up the inside.
Oh, I've lost the momentum. I have to out-accelerate her to the line.
Oh, yes! And she crosses the line the winner!
No, no, no, no, no!
Well done, Porschey.
Definitely the Renault's got more traction out of the corners
in these greasy conditions, but the Porsche's got an extra balance of poise that helped win it the day.
At the end, there was less than two seconds in it,
which means the winners at Renault Sport
have made one very impressive piece of hatchback indeed.
Now, we were so impressed by Renault Sport's latest offering,
it has inspired our best ever competition package.
Not only are we giving away one of the finest handling hot-hatches of all time,
a 2004 Renault Sport Clio 182,
carefully selected by our experts and currently in the custody of my good self,
but we'll also give you £1,000 towards your car insurance,
courtesy of elephant.co.uk.
It doesn't stop there. We've also got places for you and a guest
at the exclusive YouDrive@Porsche course at Silverstone,
including the chance to drive your own car on the track,
laps in a 911 and get some hints and tips from me.
Like that? Well, there's more.
We're also giving away a 40-inch LCD TV,
an Xbox and the Superstars V8 Next Challenge driving game,
plus our favourite five car games and a sat nav
and a Pure Highway in-car DAB radio and a hands-free kit.
For your chance to win this sensational prize package,
just answer the following question correctly:
Lines close at midday on Thursday 10th June,
three days later for postal entries.
Still to come, Jonny crash tests the Mini
and Tiff's world exclusive with Lewis Hamilton and the new McLaren.
Here's a good fact for you: thanks to a new direct injection system,
the 458 I'll be testing later is actually more economical
than its predecessor, the 430,
averaging a touch over 20mpg.
If that still sounds a bit thirsty,
then pay attention to this next item. Cue Jonny.
In a world of exorbitant fuel costs,
small, fuel-efficient cars are at the top of everyone's agenda.
And these two represent the pinnacle of 21st-century city car technology.
Both the Smart ForTwo and the Toyota IQ use clever design
to fit a lot into a little.
But a new Smart will cost you £9,000.
A new IQ, ten grand.
Now, I'm loathe to spend money on a new car
when perhaps there's a cheaper alternative.
Oh, look. It's a Mini.
Front-wheel drive and a sideways engine
was a revolution 50 years ago,
and it meant just 18 inches
of the car's ten-foot length was engine bay.
But does a humble £1,000 Mini still cut it today?
I've got three tests to find out.
The most spacious interior.
My balloon-based experiments...
...reveal that the Mini still rules.
It's the narrowest car here and fits 84 balloons inside -
joint first with the IQ.
But the IQ gets marked down
for having bigger exterior dimensions.
Which makes you think, has the IQ moved the game on 50 years later?
One-nil to the Mini. Next, a test of handling
around a city-themed obstacle course.
The Mini's hard rubber cone suspension
makes it even dartier to drive than an IQ.
And it's far nippier than the ponderous diesel Smart.
It goes 0-60 in 16.8 seconds, which is glacial.
The 86mpg Smart may be more frugal than the 66mpg IQ
and the 50mpg Mini, but for pure driving fun,
the Mini wins this test.
Oh, I think I might have dabbed the horn.
Sort of thing that Tiff would do.
Time for the final test.
The main event.
This is the test I've really not been looking forward to.
The most significant advances in car design over the past 50 years
have been in one particular area:
safety. It's a massive consideration for an awful lot of us
when we buy a car new.
I feel a crash test coming on.
The Euro NCAP Toyota five-star IQ is packed with safety features.
A suspension side rail absorbs energy
and inside there are an incredible nine air bags.
And the Smart is equally impressive,
even when we crashed one at a massive 70mph.
It's advanced design kept the passenger cell intact.
The Mini was designed by a small bunch of people,
two of whom were basically work experiencers,
at a time when crash testing didn't really exist.
You've seen how the other two cars have fared in accidents.
Now it's time for our little Mini
to experience a heavy front-end collision.
We will launch it from the top of a 1 in 1 hill,
into the side of this Lexus.
At the point of impact, we estimate it will be doing 25mph -
a typical urban speed.
Chocks away!
The near two-ton Lexus has been swatted out of the way,
showing just how big the crash forces must have been.
But because the stiff Mini subframe collided with the stiff Lexus sills,
there's been very little damage.
There's a perfect imprint of a Mini, of Alec Issigonis's creation,
in the side of a Lexus.
The Mini's doors opened easily and apart from a wonky binnacle,
the windscreen was intact and there was no intrusion around the pedals.
But the most important thing here is not the car.
It's the passengers.
With no crumple zones, no airbags or sophisticated seatbelts
to absorb all the forces,
there was nothing to soften the blow for the Mini's passengers.
All of that energy of coming to a sudden halt
would be transmitted through them.
If a modern car crashes, if often smashes to smithereens.
But this is simply proof of energy leaving the car.
If the vehicle appears to shrug the accident off, then almost certainly
the people on board haven't.
In terms of packaging and nippiness,
we've shown the Mini is truly a design marvel
that is still yet to be significantly beaten.
However, bear in mind that when it comes to safety,
it's showing its age a little.
The 458 may be the supercar of the moment,
but it won't necessarily reign for long.
Tiff has been for a world-exclusive insight
into the car which could take its crown.
From Maranello to Woking and the McLaren Technology Centre.
It looks more like an operating theatre than a factory
and is home to Britain's newest supercar:
the McLaren MP4-12C.
Costing around £170,000,
it uses a twin-turbo 3.8-litre V8.
Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton,
dressed in McLaren's version of smart-cas,
have spent time developing the car at the Goodwood circuit.
And, even though he's bound to be a little biased,
I track down Lewis to spill the beans
about what must have been a rare experience:
having fun in a road car
without having to answer to the Melbourne police afterwards.
I'm used to hearing your comments about it
so unfortunately I didn't actually have...
I wasn't as ecstatic as you are when you're driving.
The information you're giving to the public was...
I tried to do something similar, but I'm a racing driver.
The power... we've got 600bhp. It's quite a lot in such a small car.
It's got this massive tool bag, from 2,000 revs right the way up.
Yeah, so you can feel that. You don't actually really hear the turbo so much.
I think Jenson said in the video, there's a bit of a wah-wah.
If you get the power on a sort of rev about six to seven,
it's got this wah-wah sound.
It's nice. It sounds pretty cool.
The twin-clutch gearbox and the paddle shift... How did that work?
Was the operation as smooth as you expected?
Probably even smoother than our Formula 1 car.
That has judder and it's not smooth enough.
So maybe we need to give some information back to them.
- How was the feel through the steering? - It's got so much grip.
When you get mid-corner, it's like you've got downforce.
What about the traction controls? Lots of settings.
How much were you allowed to switch off in your Goodwood drive?
I wasn't allowed to switch off but... that's what they tell you.
He's flat out. He's not supposed to drive it 100%
but we don't know how to drive anything less.
Having left F1, McLaren supremo Ron Dennis
has taken control of the road car operation
but his famously strict regime was obviously having a day off.
We saw one helicopter shot of a nice powerslide with blue smoke.
Who was doing that? I can't say.
I can't say cos Ron told us not... We were told not to push the cars.
- Of course you were told. - We're racing drivers, yeah.
- I'll take it. - What colour would you order, though, when you want yours?
I've got mine a similar colour to that. That same reflection but in red.
- You'll have to pay for it. Or is Ron going to give you one? - No.
- You're not going to pay for it. - No.
Me and Jenson have agreed on that and we're pushing Ron so...
And Ron's already agreed to give us a car, so it's great.
For more exclusive video about this story, check out our website:
Some company car!
But for the rest of us, the MP4 is on sale early 2011.
Now, unfortunately, we've got to say arrivederci from Italy.
But look what you've got coming up next week.
Vicki tests the £100,000 Maserati GranCabrio
by driving from Paris to Monaco.
And I'll make an attempt to top the iconic figure of 200mph
in the new Noble M600.
Don't miss it.
And finally, here's a reminder of our best ever competition
to win a 2004 Renault Sport Clio 182,
£1,000 towards your insurance, courtesy of elephant.co.uk,
a Porsche driving experience at Silverstone,
plus our pick of the best driving goodies on the market.
Lines close at midday on Thursday 10th June
and three days later for postal entries. Good luck!
Sync by fant0m www.addic7ed.com