There are two boutique British brands that are going places – fast! Aston Martin is one, the builder of my DOTY (drive of the year), McLaren is the other.
I’ll gloss over the fact that I didn’t get to drive the McLaren 600LT on the road with one word – Hungaroring. The sinuous, challenging and underrated track is close to the ultimate playground for a car like the 600LT and that’s where my DOTY took place.
For once there was plenty of track time, and even when some extra laps were offered I didn’t say no. I couldn’t get enough.
The 600LT is mega fast and unbelievably capable, but at the same time not intimidating. I went faster in that car than in any other road-registerable machine I’ve sampled and yet it encouraged me to go even harder. Ultimately, the pure mechanical ability of the car exceeded the performance of the tyres. It was gobsmacking.
Honourable mention: the Hyundai enduro race I shared with our own Bathurst winner, Luke Youlden. I don’t think I’ve laughed as much on a racetrack in years…
Picking a favourite drive of any particular year is always a challenge. But rather than focus on the finest technical achievement or the most extravagant engineering accomplishment, I’ve elected to go with the car that brought the biggest grin to my face: the Mustang GT Track Pack.
A strong contender in Australia’s Best Driver’s Car 2018 (and resplendent in Triple Yellow), the Mustang recalled everything I love about the muscle-car genre. That sonorous 5.0-litre V8, a proper manual gearbox and a lively rear-end you just want to hang loose through corners.
The Mustang GT Track Pack was a drive of sheer delight, and one that for pure ‘shits and giggles’ earned the Mustang a far higher place in my mind that the ninth place it achieved at ABDC.
Just how often do you get to drive a high-performance Porsche on an F1 track? OK, pretty often, if you own a $300,000 Porsche and live in Albert Park.
But for lesser mortals, Porsche's international launch of the Panamera GTS in Bahrain was an unprecedented opportunity to drive the turbo V8 wagon (it was a Sport Turismo version) around the F1 track at near-race speeds.
The Bahrain track is wide open and fast, to the extent that you find yourself wishing the Panamera GTS had a wee bit more grunt!
Only downside: we weren't allowed to disable the stability control...
An easy pick for me – driving Porsche’s latest Cayman GTS in the inaugural Targa Great Barrier Reef tarmac rally.
Driving a Porsche is always a joy, but being able to pilot one on closed-road stages was an absolute thrill. While driving in the non-competition Porsche Tour group limits participants to a maximum of 130km/h, there’s still an opportunity to push the car much harder than in regular driving.
The Porsche Cayman GTS was the perfect partner, delivering exhilarating performance and an engaging ride on some stunning, and often very technical roads.
In fact, I found the drive so compelling that I’m considering adopting tarmac rallying as my new hobby, even if the Porsche Cayman GTS is out of my reach for the time being.
Driving the Jaguar I-PACE on the road, track and even off-road was an unforgettable experience and in some ways a bit like investing in cryptocurrency: exciting, nerve-wracking and supremely intriguing.
The way the twin-motor Jaguar I-PACE EV blasts out of corners on the racetrack was stultifying, backed up by grin-inducing grip levels.
But the Jag's breadth of capability, 470km driving distance and overall packaging is what really made my jaw drop.
How does any vehicle – much less an EV -- ford a creek then clamber up a rocky hillside on the same day that it scorches around a racetrack and then smoothly and serenely cruises to the airport. And all in the lap of luxury?
The future of automobiles is very bright… And it will be far less vanilla than many people think.
Despite being a Brit, I’ve never been an Aston fan. They're normally far too heavy and blunt for my tastes… And then the ‘new’ Aston arrived and built the DBS Superleggera.
Despite tipping the scales at almost two tonnes, two-up with a tank of fuel, blunt the DBS Superleggera isn’t. Its twin-turbo 5.2-litre V8's 900Nm of torque is more than man enough to shrug off its mass and the way it hauls to 200km/h is a joy that sadly will rarely be experienced Down Under.
Better still, as well as straight-line speed, the DBS has body control and steering precision that is alien to the DB11 upon which it's based. While a V12 Ferrari frightens you into submission when you dare to scratch the limits of its handling, the Aston seems to caresses you to explore a little further.
Cementing the Aston DBS Superleggera as the drive of 2018 I’ll remember forever was the backdrop -- skirting along the Austrian border, deep within the Bavarian Alps, and the alpine climb around the Berchtesgaden national park was unforgettable.
They say that great things never come from comfort zones and this year I understood that more than ever.
In September I had the chance to get my CAMS racing licence alongside two of my carsales colleageus, Sam Charlwood and Marton Pettendy, and I was excited and nervous as hell.
I was comfortable with the skills test, but what I hadn’t prepared for was getting behind the wheel of a Formula 4 open-wheeler on a wet and wild Winton Motor Raceway.
The Formula 4 series is the training ground for some of the best talent in Australia – the kids that will potentially drive Formula 1 one day – and the cars that run in this FIA-approved series are the real deal, a Mygale monocoque chassis powered by a Ford Fiesta ST-based 2.0-litre turbocharged engine matched to a six-speed sequential gearbox.
We get to drive so many amazing cars (a few not-so-amazing) but to move outside of your comfort zone and really challenge yourself is a whole other matter. I did it. I loved it and I was proud of myself.
In decades to come, when we’re supposedly humming around in self-driving electric cars in a scene not all that dissimilar to The Jetsons, I will take great delight in the five days I spent with the wild Ferrari 812 Superfast back in 2018.
It may be the visceral nature of the machine that jogs the memory most, or that its loud, shrieking exhaust drew the ire of local residents along the road on which we filmed. Or perhaps the V12’s ability to defy physics and common sense was the personal highlight.
Whatever the case, the Ferrari 812 Superfast is my favourite drive from the past 12 months. In an age continually governed by safety, emissions and, subsequently, restraint, the 812 Superfast shirks convention.
This Ferrari is unapologetically bold and has the makings of an era-defining machine, rose-tinted glasses or otherwise.
The Asia Pacific launch of the Ford Ranger Raptor in the Northern Territory flashed by all too quickly, but some hard-core off-road testing in the dusty Top End was enough to give us a taste of what the most extreme factory Ranger ever is capable of -- and wanting for more.
Despite a $75K price tag and an engine you can option in other Rangers and the Everest, the Raptor is an engineering masterpiece that defies physics off-road and a testament to Ford’s Aussie vehicle development team.
Honourable mentions: Porsche 911 GT2 RS and Chevrolet Camaro versus Ford Mustang comparo. The opportunity to thrash the most fearsome road-going 911 ever produced around the Albert Park circuit on the eve of the Australian F1 GP in company with Mark Webber still gives me goosebumps.
And although two days of road and track action alongside old mate Bruce Newton in two all-American rear-drive V8 muscle-cars couldn’t have been more different, it was one of ‘those’ gigs that will stick with me forever.