HERE’S my Instagram-style memory reel showing the best bits from the motoring year.
We’ve tested 80-odd cars and vans and discussed many more:
I’m not going to lie. The 221mph Ferrari 12Cilindri was a highlight.
As was the McLaren Artura Spider. And the Aston Martin Vantage. And Tesla’s Cyberbeast.
We also liked the Porsche 911 GTS hybrid. And the Bentley Continental GT Speed. And the dinky £110k Bentley Blower Junior. And the Lexus LM. And the Audi S3.
We very much enjoyed surfing dunes in Morocco in the Skoda Enyaq Coupe.
We liked the £23k Mini Cooper petrol so much we made it Car of the Year. Ford’s mega-selling Transit Custom was crowned Van of the Year.
The Renault 5 was our favourite electric car and Dacia’s Duster 4×4 won best-value prize. Those two are shortlisted for European Car of the Year 2025.
I’ll eat a bag of raw sprouts if one of them doesn’t land the big prize in Brussels on January 10. I’m a juror for that, too.
We also liked Kia’s EV3. And the £16k Picanto. And Nissan’s Qashqai e-Power. And the Renault Scenic. And the Skoda Kodiaq. And the Volkswagen Golf GTE.
VW celebrated 50 years of Golf by heading to the hot air balloon festival in Cappadocia, Turkey.
We didn’t like the LeapMotor T03 very much. Or the weedy Vauxhall Grandland petrol.
And we’re still not happy Ford used Capri for a four-door electric crossover.
It’s not a Capri. But the car itself is good — and hiring Eric Cantona as frontman was PR gold. He’s a top bloke.
The same can be said for music mogul Will.i.am, who created an in-car app to turn your car into a recording studio.
Play a song from the Sound Drive playlist and it responds to signals from your driving inputs.
Accelerate and drums kick in. Slow down and it becomes a melody. It’s actually pretty cool.
Other highs included a simply awesome 360-degree view of the country’s biggest car plant, from the top of a 249ft wind turbine.
A fifth of the energy used to build the Nissan Qashqai and Juke in Sunderland comes from wind and solar.
We did a “Banksy” at Toyota’s Burnaston plant, near Derby, to celebrate producing five million British-built Toyotas. The hybrid engines are made at Deeside.
Everyone else is banging on about the new Superman movie but the return of Supervan — unseen in public for more than 40 years — got my juices flowing.
Mk1 Transit body, race-car chassis, Ford V8. The 1971 original was so comically fast it would lift a front wheel attacking corners and keep on pulling all the way up to 150mph.
I’m hoping to have a go next year.
All that’s left for me to say is, we hope you enjoy reading Sun Motors as much as we do creating it.
Merry Christmas.
