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Family car of the Year 2012: BMW 320D
The BMW 320d Touring stands out as a beacon of rational, old-fashioned common sense. In a world dominated by marketers whose only aim in life is to convince you that life will be incomplete until you purchase their newest niche-busting MAV or mini-crossover-MPV, the BMW 320d Touring stands out as a beacon of rational, old-fashioned common sense.
Small enough not to feel like you're hauling around a Luton van when you don't need it, big enough to cope when you do, it's one of the few cars that will get a respectful head-nod from even the most hardcore petrolhead. Because it makes perfect sense. It even drives well, and manages 184bhp with over 60mpg. It's practical, but good-looking, premium quality but with Happy Shopper running costs. It's the anti-hero for all those people who need a fast, useful car for a small family, without falling for the incessant sales spin.
It's a refreshing example of a simple idea, executed well. And it's Top Gear Magazine's Family car of the Year 2012.
Supercar of the Year 2012: Ferrari F12 Berlinetta
The fastest Ferrari ever is our supercar of the year. Sometimes a car comes along that takes accepted practice and turns it on its head. The Ferrari F12 is one of those cars. An enormous 730bhp and 509lb ft V12 driving exclusively through the rear wheels should really be a juggler's handful, hard, aggressive and uncompromised. But the F12 is anything but - drive it slowly and it's as docile as a yogic kitten.
And yet, when you decide to allow the car its head, it re-writes Newton's immutables. Paul Horrell describes it as extraordinary "You're over there almost before you've left here. Bang. The performance can seem like a dark, fathomless well. If you don't calibrate your aim just-so before you throw the switch, more fool you."
So not quite a kitten, then. But it's the combination that impresses most, Paul Horrell again: "Breathtakingly beautiful, confident enough that it doesn't need to be theatrical or bellicose. Sympathetically useable - but crazed and noisy when that's what you want..."
Sounds good, huh? Well that's the reason the Ferrari F12 is Top Gear Magazine's Supercar of the Year 2012.
Hot hatch of the Year 2012: Ford Focus ST Estate
The ST Estate offers front-wheel drive thrills with a decent dose of everyday practicality. When Ford decided to build a ‘World Car' we weren't expecting it to punt out a hot hatch version with quite so much fun attached to quite so low a pricetag. But that's what has happened with the ST; proper front-wheel drive thrills with a decent dose of everyday practicality. Obviously Top Gear needed a twist, so to prove that the ST covers oh-so-many-bases, the intrepid Matt Jones decided to take a freshly imported Russian ST Estate (still technically a hatch, we hasten to add) and go on a tour of Moscow's environs. If it can survive and thrive in the crashiest, most pothole-laden and anti-hot hatch nation on earth, then we can truly call it a car fit for the entire globe.
Matt refers to it as "the ultimate test of our previous conclusion that the Focus ST Estate is a car for every mood, every journey and every road". And then immediately witnesses a series of light road accidents, leaving him glad he's in a car that can avoid the worst excesses of Russian town driving.
Luxury car of the Year 2012: the new Range Rover
New Range Rover is cleverer, bigger, lighter and our luxury car of the year. Consider the boundaries pushed, the limits lightly re-engineered. New Range Rover is cleverer, bigger, lighter. The circle of virtuosity closed with better efficiency, smaller bills, more engaging dynamics. Because when you have to do a ground-up rebuild of a car that still sells well, and features a thick sales portfolio of happy-as-it-is customers, the pressure is definitely on.
And yet, new Range Rover has done all that, and more. In fact, as well as being possibly the most comfortingly capable off-roader in the sector, this version serves up a whole series of surprises; it's more nimble, more luxurious, more... encompassing than ever before. It used to be a well-appointed SUV - now it's a luxury car with totally believable pretention to take over where a Bentley Flying Spur, BMW 7-Series or Mercedes S-Class leaves off. It's one of the best, most comprehensive cars every built. And it's made in the UK. The phrase ‘all the car you'll ever need' is too often repeated to be taken seriously. But in this case, it's true.
Sportscar of the Year: BMW M135i vs Porsche Boxster
This year, two cars caused a ruckus in the TG Office...The term ‘sportscar' covers a hell of a lot of bases, but generally - in Top Gear world at least - it just means fast and fun, and heavy on the driver-enjoyment. But this year, two cars caused a ruckus in the TG Office, with a split vote on which should walk away with the title. In one corner, we had the new Porsche Boxster, a two-seat, naturally aspirated roadster so consummately sportscar in its attitude that it looked like a shoe-in. In the other corner, we have the BMW M135i. A hatchback with a turbocharged 3.0-litre straight six. Which isn't, technically, even in the correct category. But this is TopGear. And it being TG, there really was only one way to settle the showdown and find the Award winner. Both cars, on road and track, and invite the Thing in White to officiate.
It cost many tyres and quite a lot of fuel. But eventually we found the car that most universally represents what it means to be Top Gear's Sportscar of the Year. You'll just have to read the full story in the Awards issue of TG magazine to find out which one won...
The Car of the Year: Toyota GT86
Video and words from the man himself from our Top Gear Awards issue: out now.
You thought Jeremy would immediately pick the most expensive or most powerful car here, didn’t you? Well, he didn’t… he picked one of the cheapest and least powerful. But he had his reasons. The Toyota GT86 is a new way of looking at an old problem: how to have fun in a reasonably priced car. Now, TG has a long association with cheap thrills, but the GT86 tries very hard to re-educate a generation of hot-hatch motorists on the joys of rear-wheel drive. And it succeeds, by being exciting, relatively cheap and accessible to mere mortals. It’s good, people. Be excited.
“I like the GT86 because it’s come barrelling into the bottom end of the marketplace with a big dirty smile on its face and a suggestion in the way it stands that it wants to have fun with your middle parts. It’s a car designed for one thing only: fun.”
The BMW 320d Touring stands out as a beacon of rational, old-fashioned common sense. In a world dominated by marketers whose only aim in life is to convince you that life will be incomplete until you purchase their newest niche-busting MAV or mini-crossover-MPV, the BMW 320d Touring stands out as a beacon of rational, old-fashioned common sense.
Small enough not to feel like you're hauling around a Luton van when you don't need it, big enough to cope when you do, it's one of the few cars that will get a respectful head-nod from even the most hardcore petrolhead. Because it makes perfect sense. It even drives well, and manages 184bhp with over 60mpg. It's practical, but good-looking, premium quality but with Happy Shopper running costs. It's the anti-hero for all those people who need a fast, useful car for a small family, without falling for the incessant sales spin.
It's a refreshing example of a simple idea, executed well. And it's Top Gear Magazine's Family car of the Year 2012.
Supercar of the Year 2012: Ferrari F12 Berlinetta
The fastest Ferrari ever is our supercar of the year. Sometimes a car comes along that takes accepted practice and turns it on its head. The Ferrari F12 is one of those cars. An enormous 730bhp and 509lb ft V12 driving exclusively through the rear wheels should really be a juggler's handful, hard, aggressive and uncompromised. But the F12 is anything but - drive it slowly and it's as docile as a yogic kitten.
And yet, when you decide to allow the car its head, it re-writes Newton's immutables. Paul Horrell describes it as extraordinary "You're over there almost before you've left here. Bang. The performance can seem like a dark, fathomless well. If you don't calibrate your aim just-so before you throw the switch, more fool you."
So not quite a kitten, then. But it's the combination that impresses most, Paul Horrell again: "Breathtakingly beautiful, confident enough that it doesn't need to be theatrical or bellicose. Sympathetically useable - but crazed and noisy when that's what you want..."
Sounds good, huh? Well that's the reason the Ferrari F12 is Top Gear Magazine's Supercar of the Year 2012.
Hot hatch of the Year 2012: Ford Focus ST Estate
The ST Estate offers front-wheel drive thrills with a decent dose of everyday practicality. When Ford decided to build a ‘World Car' we weren't expecting it to punt out a hot hatch version with quite so much fun attached to quite so low a pricetag. But that's what has happened with the ST; proper front-wheel drive thrills with a decent dose of everyday practicality. Obviously Top Gear needed a twist, so to prove that the ST covers oh-so-many-bases, the intrepid Matt Jones decided to take a freshly imported Russian ST Estate (still technically a hatch, we hasten to add) and go on a tour of Moscow's environs. If it can survive and thrive in the crashiest, most pothole-laden and anti-hot hatch nation on earth, then we can truly call it a car fit for the entire globe.
Matt refers to it as "the ultimate test of our previous conclusion that the Focus ST Estate is a car for every mood, every journey and every road". And then immediately witnesses a series of light road accidents, leaving him glad he's in a car that can avoid the worst excesses of Russian town driving.
Luxury car of the Year 2012: the new Range Rover
New Range Rover is cleverer, bigger, lighter and our luxury car of the year. Consider the boundaries pushed, the limits lightly re-engineered. New Range Rover is cleverer, bigger, lighter. The circle of virtuosity closed with better efficiency, smaller bills, more engaging dynamics. Because when you have to do a ground-up rebuild of a car that still sells well, and features a thick sales portfolio of happy-as-it-is customers, the pressure is definitely on.
And yet, new Range Rover has done all that, and more. In fact, as well as being possibly the most comfortingly capable off-roader in the sector, this version serves up a whole series of surprises; it's more nimble, more luxurious, more... encompassing than ever before. It used to be a well-appointed SUV - now it's a luxury car with totally believable pretention to take over where a Bentley Flying Spur, BMW 7-Series or Mercedes S-Class leaves off. It's one of the best, most comprehensive cars every built. And it's made in the UK. The phrase ‘all the car you'll ever need' is too often repeated to be taken seriously. But in this case, it's true.
Sportscar of the Year: BMW M135i vs Porsche Boxster
This year, two cars caused a ruckus in the TG Office...The term ‘sportscar' covers a hell of a lot of bases, but generally - in Top Gear world at least - it just means fast and fun, and heavy on the driver-enjoyment. But this year, two cars caused a ruckus in the TG Office, with a split vote on which should walk away with the title. In one corner, we had the new Porsche Boxster, a two-seat, naturally aspirated roadster so consummately sportscar in its attitude that it looked like a shoe-in. In the other corner, we have the BMW M135i. A hatchback with a turbocharged 3.0-litre straight six. Which isn't, technically, even in the correct category. But this is TopGear. And it being TG, there really was only one way to settle the showdown and find the Award winner. Both cars, on road and track, and invite the Thing in White to officiate.
It cost many tyres and quite a lot of fuel. But eventually we found the car that most universally represents what it means to be Top Gear's Sportscar of the Year. You'll just have to read the full story in the Awards issue of TG magazine to find out which one won...
The Car of the Year: Toyota GT86
Video and words from the man himself from our Top Gear Awards issue: out now.
You thought Jeremy would immediately pick the most expensive or most powerful car here, didn’t you? Well, he didn’t… he picked one of the cheapest and least powerful. But he had his reasons. The Toyota GT86 is a new way of looking at an old problem: how to have fun in a reasonably priced car. Now, TG has a long association with cheap thrills, but the GT86 tries very hard to re-educate a generation of hot-hatch motorists on the joys of rear-wheel drive. And it succeeds, by being exciting, relatively cheap and accessible to mere mortals. It’s good, people. Be excited.
“I like the GT86 because it’s come barrelling into the bottom end of the marketplace with a big dirty smile on its face and a suggestion in the way it stands that it wants to have fun with your middle parts. It’s a car designed for one thing only: fun.”
