Rum, rogues and turbos

Rulebooks are being torn up: hypercars with electric motors and no pistons, the GT3 RS forgoing a stick in favour of paddles, the M3 with an automatic gearbox and no manual option (in the UK, at least), Astons using turbos and AMG’s C63 soon to be a four-cylinder hybrid. Is nothing scared anymore?

It seems funny now to reflect on the arrival a decade ago of the BMW 1 Series M Coupé. So many of us wrestled with the idea of a turbocharged BMW M-car, endlessly turning that notion over in our minds like a sock in a tumble dryer. All that moaning, all that pontificating… Naturally aspirated engines in M-cars should sacrosanct, we wailed. What a colossal waste of energy. And I hold my hands aloft.