Driving the stars of an iconic evo era – car pictures of the week
In the 2000s the world of performance cars and our magazine hit their stride in-step. Our evo eras: 2000s test revisits a few of the greats. Here are the highlights
If you were to try and define what is a truly iconic era for performance cars and therefore for evo, what would you say? My vote easily, would be for the 2000s. Everything just seemed to click, with our magazine going from a stride, seemingly to a neverending sprint, to keep up with the car industry and the exponential growth in the market for performance cars. It was a time where new technologies unlocked new levels of performance but before such stringent regulations as we have now managed to strangle the engineering possibilities (and the profit margins).
> Get your copy of evo issue 336
It was an era of highs for everything from pinup supercars, to hot hatches, to super saloons. So naturally, the challenge of encapsulating it in a whittled-down handful of cars for our eras: 2000s test was astonishingly difficult. But we think we landed on a winning cohort. To read the feature in full, pick up your copy of issue 336 in-store or online via the evo shop.
At the bedroom wall poster end of the spectrum, the Lamborghini Murcielago, the last home of the traditional Bizzarrini V12. Supercar newcomer (and proof of just how appetising the world of performance and supercars was at the time) was Audi with the R8, a 911 rival clothed in exotic clothes to make a Gallardo look shy and retiring. Aston Martin was on fine form with V12 and V8 super GTs and a new aluminium structure to underpin them. It was represented in our test by a V8 Vantage.
The trusty 911 was of course in attendance, represented by a lovely 997 911 Carrera S. ‘Peak 911’ is an often overused expression these days but it’s a contender. BMW M was at the height of its powers too, with the singing 3.2-litre naturally-aspirated straight-six-engined E46 M3, using McLaren F1 V12 tech in a wieldly sports coupe. The 2000s saw the return of two everyman performance titans too, the Mini Cooper S (complete with supercharger) and the Mk5 VW Golf GTI, probably the finest GTI in over two generations.
A pretty epic cross section of an era that’s almost too crammed with fun and desirable performance cars brimming with personality. The test only has us wanting to whip around on the office chair and go rifling through our archive issues…
‘If you’re looking for common themes, only one of our seven cars representing the noughties is turbocharged, and subtly at that. One is supercharged, the rest are naturally aspirated, and they all have manual gearboxes. They aren’t massively heavy, either. It looks like each subsequent decade adds about 100kg to kerb weight, with an upscaling of dimensions too (maybe double for the Mini). So noughties cars are smaller, lighter, more responsive... I would argue that the noughties was, in fact, the very best of times.’ – John Barker, evo editor-at-large.
To read this feature in full, you can find issue 336 in stores or online via the evo shop to have the issue delivered straight to your door.
