The major modern flaws that even today's greatest V12 supercars suffer with
Even one of the best eCoty lineups in years didn't escape the problems inherent in modern cars
My last evo Car of the Year was just under ten years ago. How different it all is at eCoty 2025. Out of the dozen cars this year, only one has a manual gearbox and two have hybrid powertrains. Plenty of food for thought here: what is a Lamborghini with no fewer than three electric motors going to be like to drive? A Lamborghini with 1001bhp to boot.
Barker is only a year younger than me but apart from him I’m by far the oldest judge. The worry is not that I won’t be able to keep up with the youngsters on the road (I’m used to that: Meaden, Barker and Catchpole are more skilled drivers than I), but that I will come across as a Luddite. I detest the parasitical intrusion of modern ADAS systems into today’s cars. Bad enough in basic family cars but outrageous in cars designed for driving pleasure.
Fortunately, only hours into this year’s eCoty it is obvious that Taylor and Ashraf are just as irritated by all this stuff as I am. You have also to be careful that you have the car set in the right mode, with the relevant annoyances switched off. For example, the BMW M2 CS. My first drive in the car revealed an annoying friction in the steering a few degrees each side of the straight-ahead. It took a few minutes for it to dawn on me that the lane-keeping assist system was still active and was corrupting the car’s steering.
The judging process, just how we assess each contender, never stops being fascinating. Everybody goes about it differently; each has his own methodology. I’ll choose cars similar in their purpose and layout – for example the Aston Martin Vanquish and Ferrari 12 Cilindri – and drive them over the same stretch of road several times over, preferably in the company of another driver so that I can see how each car performs, moves on the road and rides, etc.
There’s certainly plenty of wheel-time. Most days our photographic locations are a two-hour drive from our hotel in Dignes-les-Bains, which provides a great drive in the early morning and another in the evening in the dark.
The Ferrari is the first car from Maranello in many decades that is so beautiful to my eyes that I am considering for the first time in my life purchasing a Lottery ticket. I was lining up to put the 12 Cilindri first in my rankings but then I had a blistering drive in the Lamborghini Revuelto. I’ve been waiting all my life for Lamborghini to build a car as good as this. I’ve loved the V12 engine from the Countach onwards; trouble is, the car carrying the engine has often been lacking. Not any longer.
One morning I found myself in the Morgan Superport following fellow bus-pass carrier Barker in the Lamborghini. Keeping up with John has always been challenging but I found the Morgan to be so quick, so easy to place on the road and just so dynamically competent that it was almost a zen experience sticking to the Revuelto’s rear bumper.
Can you believe that? Even five years ago, attempting to keep station with a supercar in a Morgan would have been a quicker way out than biting on a cyanide pill. And what I particularly like about the Supersport is that you could take it on a gentle Morgan Owners’ Club rally to the Alps and also to a trackday at Spa (at which you could embarrass many drivers in more exotic machinery).
The quality of the field this year has been outstanding. But aside from the irritation of all the ADAS intrusion and over-complicated driving modes (hurray for cars like the Alpine A110 Ultime that have a simple Sport button that changes only the settings that really make a difference), the other frustration is the size of some of the cars.
One evening I drove back in the Vanquish and struggled greatly with its bulk. The fear is not throwing the thing into a field, but chipping an alloy or scrubbing its flanks along a rock wall on a tight mountain road. I was holding up Dickie in the Revuelto simply because I was struggling to place the car accurately on the road and was in fear of the rocks and parapets as well as oncoming trucks.
The next evening, just as we were preparing to drive back to the hotel, when asked which car I would prefer to drive back in, I replied: ‘Anything but the Aston.’ Barker seemed surprised and took the Vanquish himself. Two hours later in the hotel car park he virtually exploded out of the car, swearing about its bulk.
Collar me at home in my local pub and I’ll tell you that modern sports cars have become too heavy, too powerful and too big. They have, but this year’s eCoty run over the stunning roads in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence has proved that on great roads and in light traffic there is still a place for them.
