JULY/AUGUST
W most exacting in the business: five-star verdicts are hard to achieve. Between 2020 and the start of July this year, just six cars had reached that threshold. And yet, in the space of the next two months, we handed out three maximum five-star scores.
Had our testers gone soft? Absolutely not. The industry just produced three brilliant, significant and very, very different cars. Two of those machines – the Porsche 911 S/T and the Skoda Superb Estate 2.0 TDI – showcased the art of refined evolution. By contrast, the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N proved to be a true step-change, as the first EV to be a genuine driver’s car.
July and August weren’t just notable because the stars were shining: there were also few signs of the traditional industry summer slowdown. Ferrari unveiled the 12Cilindri, which sounds way cooler if you pronounce it in Italian, while Ford revealed a new Capri, or at least a new electric crossover that was named the Capri. It was a move that sparked some controversy, which was probably the idea: it got way more coverage than an electric SUV would have otherwise.