If there is a car that redefines the modern supercar, it is the Ferrari SF90 Stradale. It marks many firsts for Ferrari — a plug-in hybrid drivetrain, all-wheel drive, an electric-only mode — but more impressive is the fact that it isn’t a special series or limited edition car. It is a production car that combines hyper car levels of technology and performance in a package that doesn’t cost half as much as a hypercar would. And it headlines the August 2020 issue of evo India! We have driven the car at Maranello and in the hills around the factory, trying to make sense of Ferrari’s 1000 horsepower class defining super car!
We have got plenty more in this issue, including the much awaited comparison tests of the Tata Altroz with its rivals, the Honda City iVTEC with the Volkswagen Vento TSI, and the Skoda Rapid TSI with the Hyundai Verna Turbo. With the SF90 moving the bar so high, we have revisited the McLaren P1 seven years on to see if it is still relevant and explored the rich motorsport legacies of Alfa Romeo and Lancia. With the Panigale V2 incoming, we pit it against the V4 S to see how it stacks up when it comes to the price/ performance ratio in our dedicated Fast Bikes India section. We also kick off the new TUNED section this month dedicated to tuner cars with stories of tuned Octys, Zens, the Mach-E 1400 and much more!
Meanwhile, we have gotten behind the wheel of a number of new cars and bikes to give you our straightforward, no-nonsense reviews: the new Volkswagen T-Roc, MG Hector Plus, Ferrari F8 Spider, the Jannarelly Design-1 and the reimagined MAT Stratos!
Less than a decade ago, a 1000 horsepower was bonafide hyper car territory. These cars were made in limited numbers with astronomical price tags, and were more a showcase of technology than anything else. However, Ferrari has just broken in to that space with its SF90 Stradale, its flagship V8 series production car. Built to celebrate 90 years of Ferrari, the SF90 Stradale brings to the table eye-watering performance and complicated technology, marking a number of firsts for the legendary carmaker. It gets electric motors combined with a twin-turbo V8 that give it all-wheel drive (and even front-wheel drive in EV-only mode!) capabilities, and a battery that can be charged from a wall-socket. In this story, we try to make sense of this maddening pursuit of more power and question whether it is too much for the road.
Our design team has been hard at work creating some kick-ass merchandise with our partners at 100kmph. We’re now giving away these cool rally-themed t-shirts, free, to our subscribers. Plus subscribers get free stickers with every issue, every month
The Altroz has been around for a while, and we’re finally getting a chance to pit it against its rivals — the Maruti Suzuki Baleno, Volkswagen Polo with its new TSI engine and the Hyundai i20. Can Tata Motors crack the premium hatchback segment?
This month on we have kicked off a new section dedicated to tuner cars and tuner culture in general, and over the next few months, we will feature some of the craziest builds out there. We kick things off with a crazy Skoda Octavia RS that has been tuned to kick out 485bhp. We also look at a 170bhp Zen built by Race Concepts — that has brilliant performance at a budget. We also look at Akrapovic, and how it revolutionised the performance exhaust and whether the Ford Mach-E 1400 is a sign of things to come when it comes to tuning electric cars.
Downsizing and turbocharging is becoming the norm and one segment with a whole host of new launches is the C-segment sedans. In this story, we pit the Skoda Rapid TSI (which has received huge interest from enthusiasts for its aggressive pricing of the Rider variant) against the Hyundai Verna Turbo. Both get 1-litre turbo engines, but where the Rapid is available with a manual only, the Verna gets a DCT. Which one comes out on top?
There is still one car that sticks to the bastion of natural aspiration and that is the Honda City. Nat-asp vs turbo — which is faster? We drag race the City with the VW Vento TSI to see which one is quicker, and then also break down the driving experience of each car and how they are such polar opposites, and yet both hugely involving.
Less than a decade after the ‘holy trinity’ of hypercars burst on to the scene, a production supercar in the SF90 Stradale has eclipsed them on performance. Are those hypercars still relevant in a world where technology is being democratised like never before. We take the McLaren P1 on a roadtrip across Spain to find out.
A car’s handling affects many things. The first thing that springs to mind is how much fun can be had behind the wheel, and that is true — fun is directly proportional to good dynamics. But something that isn’t always talked about is safety. The more predictable the handling of the car, the less chance of losing control and getting in to an accident! In this story we take the Hyundai Grand i10 Nios, Venue, Verna and Creta on a drive to the hills to explore how far Hyundai’s cars have come on the dynamic front over the years.
Two Italian companies that were once both dominant on race and rally tracks, that have sadly been reduced to shadows of their former selves. One cannot understate the contributions both Alfa Romeo and Lancia have made to the world of motorsport. In this story, we look back at iconic race cars and rally cars from both companies, including the likes of T33/3 and 155 from Alfa and the Stratos and Integrale from Lancia.
In the Fast Bikes India section, we pit the new Ducati Panigale V2 against its more fearsome older sibling, the V4 S to see which makes for a better road bike. The V2 is down on cylinders and power, but it is also down on price and isn’t as hardcore as the V4. Does this make it a more compelling buy if you’re not going to be at a racetrack every weekend? We also get astride a slew of new motorcycles including the Hero Xtreme 160R, Bajaj Dominar 250 and the BS6 Apache RR310.