Opinion

Porsche is currently hooked on the hard stuff: the rare-groove special editions every manufacturer of note seems to be purveying as though their existence depended on it. (Maybe it does?) It’s obvious why.

These creations delight the engineering teams, but so too do they have the bean-counters positively frothing at the mouth, such is the willingness to swallow outrageous prices. It’s easy to see these projects as cynical.

And then you meet the cars first hand.

The Porsche 911 Dakar? Silly car, silly price, but truly, superbly fine company in the real world and an instant classic.

The new 911 S/T? Hugely contrived, despicably expensive, but probably the most intoxicating yet usable supercar Porsche has ever made. Sublime.

Which brings us to the 911 Sport Classic, which arguably started all this nonsense in the ‘997’ era, when it embraced a style-over-substance approach with an entirely pointless duck-tail, houndstooth innards and almost no mechanical tickles.

Asking price: £140k. Or, in 2009, £10k more than a 911 GT2!

This year, Porsche reprised the Sport Classic idea, cueing prejudiced ambivalence in the Autocar office, particularly when the price was revealed to be £214k.

Except the new SC is a genuinely interesting 911, with its own character and quirks.

Yes, you get all the aesthetic trinkets, which I can take or leave, but underneath that is an entity both special and unique: a non-S 911 Turbo shorn of its front driveshafts and fitted with a manual ’box. In 2023, it feels a bit rebellious.

The result is a sort of hot-rod modern 911 that’s just the right amount of boosty and has an exaggerated rear-biased balance that makes it all kinds of mischievous once you’re on first-name terms.

 I really fell for the SC. It’s a bit of a loner, has its own swagger about it, and given that it rides better than a GT3 Touring, it’s my current haute-911 of choice. Until next year’s batch lands, that is.

The Lamborghini Huracán Sterrato is ludicrous, a millionaire’s gewgaw designed to deliver on a use case that seems barely feasible: off-road supercar.

But it’s also the most fun I’ve had in any new car of 2023, which is why it appears here.

Not, crucially, just on loose surfaces. I did get to experience the Sterrato in desert sand when I drove it for the first time in the US in June, but most of my time with it was spent on road.

Which is where you would expect it to be most heavily compromised, given that it sits 44mm taller than the standard Huracán and rides on what are basically bespoke off-road BF Goodrich tyres that look better suited to a pick-up truck.

But the Sterrato’s gentler character is its superpower, an implicit reminder that as top-end performance cars have grown grippier and quicker, so the opportunities to exploit them in the real world have diminished to near nothingness in most parts of the world.

The Sterrato has sufficient traction to avoid feeling wayward on Tarmac, but its limits are still low enough to be genuinely accessible, and incredibly progressive when they arrive.

This is a 602bhp supercar that is pretty much as friendly on the limit as a Mazda MX-5, a Toyota GR86 or – the car it really reminds me of – an Ariel Nomad.

Even in the unlikely environment of a proper racetrack, the Sterrato stays composed when pushed into lurid oversteer.

It’s proof that Lamborghini possesses a sense of humour. Could you imagine po-faced Ferrari doing anything similar?

But the slowest and least powerful Huracán is also the most fun example.

Being totally honest, I didn’t really want to like the Kia EV9. Sure, it’s a nice design and the technology is impressive, but look at it: it’s a big, heavy SUV with an almost absurdly big battery – and a price that matches Kia’s ambitious push into the premium sphere.

It’s a long way from the Kia Picanto is all I’m saying.

But then I drove one and it turns out I really do quite like the EV9.

For something of its size, it’s disarmingly easy and relaxing to drive.

It’s comfortable too: that huge body allows for a cavernous and bright interior and the seats – in particular the reclining passenger chair – are wonderfully cosseting.

Mostly, I quite like the EV9 because while many big, premium SUVs feel overblown and imposing, it somehow feels bright and optimistic.

And that’s why it’s my favourite car I’ve driven this year: it is upbeat and makes you smile.

Of course, the fact that the EV9 is good shouldn’t really be a surprise. It’s underpinned by the Hyundai Motor Group’s excellent E-GMP platform, so it’s built from a very solid base.

But it’s still impressive that it has been done with such finesse and quality that the EV9’s chunky Range Rover-baiting price doesn’t feel unreasonable.

Now, some caveats: I drove the car in Korea and my colleague Mark Tisshaw has highlighted questions about the ride on European-tuned models.

And while relaxing and enjoyable to drive on relatively quiet rural roads east of Seoul, its sheer size might make it somewhat less so on cramped British roads.

I’m still not sure the world needs more big SUVs, which is why I’m more intrigued by the forthcoming Kia EV3, or imagining what the future EV2 could look like.

If they can capture the EV9’s upbeat driving experience in a smaller package, it could be a winning combination.

Slowly, it’s becoming acceptable to have mixed feelings about electric cars. Personally, I’m still ambivalent.

But that seems increasingly to be a reasonable place to be now that the discourse about them is more nuanced – and you no longer seem to need to be either ‘on the team’ or a zealous EV sceptic just to have a voice.

The Fisker Ocean is a very good, depolarising influence on the EV scene. Having driven one in Austria in the summer, I’m a little concerned that, as I write, I’ve yet to see any right-hand-drive ones in the UK, but Fisker is learning just about everything as it goes so it’s probably due a bit of slack on that score.

There’s a lot I like about this car. I guess there are certain parallels between Fisker and Tesla for the tendency of either brand towards cult status, but the Ocean, at least, is a pretty ordinary family car that can be bought for a fairly ordinary price and has the space and versatility simply to be used – but used widely.

That’s because the Ocean offers transformative electric range for a price you can genuinely contemplate spending.

Above all else, its creators understood that buyers still need reassurance on that score.

So a mid-range Ocean Ultra is a little over £50,000, but has a lab-tested electric range of 429 miles – and real-world autonomy that should be between 350 and 400 miles in the UK, on the basis of my test driving and depending a little on usage.

And here’s me, feeling as if I’ve written about another new electric car every other week this year, each costing something similar to the Ocean, but each only going somewhere between 200 and 275 miles on a charge.

There’s no genius to how that range has been delivered. Fisker has just gone for the biggest drive battery it can afford and, as a result, it’s made an EV that’s fairly heavy and that, while very comfy, doesn’t quite handle like a Polestar 2.

But it’s only prioritising. It’s observed the prospect of a ceiling for the market penetration of EVs – recognised that for people who, for whatever reason, can’t manage to charge at home, EVs look like a rather elitist and exclusive solution.

So it’s come up with a family car you could genuinely charge once or twice weekly, while out and about, instead – even if you’re a higher-mileage driver.

One with a fresh face and some novelty features, sure, but, underneath the daft ‘taco tray’ and the cinema-aspect rotating infotainment screen, the deeply sensible, practical soul of the kind of EV that we’ve been waiting a long time for.

I didn’t start out liking this car as much as I now do.

I’d done quite a lot of miles in its lower-powered sibling, the BMW i4 eDrive40 M Sport, which has only one electric motor, not two, and packs about 200bhp less than the 540bhp of the twin-engined M50.

I’d also read what my colleagues said about the various i4 versions – that the rear-drive 40 is better balanced, lighter and for practical purposes just as quick – and accepted it.

My own drive experience in the 40 showed that it rode and steered far better than most 2.3-tonne EV saloons and had bags of poke. What use was all that extra traction and power?

Then came news that four Cornish motor clubs were combining to stage their annual hillclimb on public roads between Newquay and Watergate Bay and were accepting entries from stock electric cars.

Immediately, I thought about the i4 40. Then, deploying my mighty three decades’ experience of hillclimbing (lots of events, practically no success), it dawned on me that choosing a version whose 0-60mph time is 3.9sec instead of my chosen model’s 5.5sec would be an easy way of moving myself up the results.

So I opted for the slightly nose-heavier M50. It was a great decision.

In a 600-mile weekend, driving to and from Cornwall, I experienced the car in economy cruise mode (range: 300 miles) but also flat out and close to the limit in public racetrack corners.

With the air-con on and the hi-fi playing quietly, I beat three-quarters of a field packed with louder, more conventional race-prepared cars.

The acceleration was bullet-like, but the brakes and steering were right up to that mark (a rarity in today’s routinely fast EVs).

Best of all, the car could cruise economically and its ride comfort was fully comparable to that of a petrol BMW 4 Series.

For some reason, most EVs don’t ride well at lower speeds. Their suspensions have trouble coping with the extra mass, either wallowing a lot or controlling the heavy body with stiff springs and ineffectual dampers.

This car was different. It rode like a BMW. I’d have been happy with it as a daily driver but didn’t get the chance. Within a week or two, it was de-fleeted and sold. Lucky for someone, too bad for me.