The great and the not-so-great of the year, according to The Sunday Times columnist
- Jeremy Clarkson’s least favourite cars of 2022
- Mercedes-AMG E 63 S estate
- Lexus ES 300h
- Kia Sportage GT Line S 1.6 T-GDI Hybrid
- Volkswagen T-Roc R
- Vauxhall Astra
- Jeremy Clarkson’s favourite cars of 2022
- BMW M5 CS
- Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS
- Ford F150 Lightning
- Alpine A110 S
- BMW M4 Competition M xDrive
It’s difficult to see how Jeremy Clarkson fits car reviewing into what is clearly a manic schedule. On top of running a farm, farm shop and restaurant (on and off… mostly off), while filming it all for TV and writing about it for The Sunday Times Magazine, he has still had time this year to create another special episode of The Grand Tour and write his regular columns for the main sections of two national newspapers.
But on top of that Clarkson is still producing car reviews for The Sunday Times Magazine – 19 throughout 2022, in fact. It would have been more but, by his own admission, he’s been so flat out that he failed to notice at least two test cars that were delivered to him this year.
A look back at all 19 shows that, unlike in previous years, Clarkson hasn’t deemed any of the cars he’s reviewed to be real stinkers; the lowest score awarded between January and December is three stars. He only wrote about one electric vehicle all year, and you’d think that came in for a beating, but surprisingly it received four stars and was one of his favourites.
There’s just one car he decided was worthy of a full five stars, despite having driven Porsches, Ferraris, Maseratis, Lamborghinis, McLarens and Mercedes (no, it wasn’t one of them). Read on to find out what is was.
Jeremy Clarkson’s least favourite cars of 2022
Mercedes-AMG E 63 S estate
- Published January 9, 2022
- Rating ***
A V8-powered luxury Mercedes AMG estate? Surely this would have been right up Clarkson’s alley? Well, he liked quite a lot about it, including the vast boot, its speed and the way it flowed from corner to corner.
But because the electrics started going wrong, including one incident when the driver’s seat kept moving forward on its own, crushing him against the steering wheel until he looked “like Stanley Tucci towards the end of that movie The Core,” Clarkson concluded he couldn’t trust the Merc and refused to drive it again.
Read ‘A big boot? That’s what I’d like to give it’ at The Sunday Times website.
Lexus ES 300h
- Published January 30, 2022
- Rating ***
This review was Clarkson at his most forlorn, seemingly resigned to the idea that speed and fun are no longer priorities in motoring, as people now prize comfort and efficiency above all else. He referred to the hybrid “Lexus ES Something or Other” saloon as “a Prius in a businessman’s suit”, describing its performance as “not even on nodding terms with the concept of speediness.”
However, he admitted it’s exceptionally comfortable and the build quality is so good that “If ever I need a pacemaker I will ask Lexus to make it.” Ultimately, he added, “in a world full of ecomentalists and speed cameras and righteous cyclists waging an all-out war on motoring, its quiet, grey anonymity does make a deal of sense.”
Read ‘A Prius in a suit — and not in a hurry’ at The Sunday Times website.
Kia Sportage GT Line S 1.6 T-GDI Hybrid
- Published May 29, 2022
- Rating ***
The tone of melancholia continued in May with his review of Kia’s hybrid Sportage. A double winner at The Sunday Times Motor Awards 2022 the Sportage may be, but the popular family SUV failed to win over Clarkson who complained of a lack of speed and handling thrills: “To drive? Who cares, really? No one who’s interested in a Korean SUV, that’s for sure.”
Noticing the proliferation of USB ports around the cabin, including in the sides of the front seats, he concluded: “This … is a car where everyone can be connected, so who cares that it takes about a year to get from 0 to 60?”
Read ‘If it’s got enough USB ports, nobody cares if it accelerates like a tortoise’ at The Sunday Times website.
Volkswagen T-Roc R
- Published August 7, 2022
- Rating ***
Clarkson was handed the keys to the hot version of VW’s “Golf on stilts”. The regular T-Roc compact SUV makes sense for a young family, he said, as it’s well built, “funky and modern” inside and fits three children in the back. But the 300bhp T-Roc R makes much less sense, Clarkson argued, because the lowered, stiffened suspension makes the driving experience “a spine-jarring, teeth-smashing bag of awfulness.”
And he pointed out the price, which with the optional extras fitted to his test car was £51,320. “Who’d pay that for what, when all is said and done, is a medium-sized MPV?” Clarkson wondered, especially when you could buy the Golf R instead.
Read ‘What’s the point of a family car that smashes your teeth in?’ at The Sunday Times website.
Vauxhall Astra
- Published December 18, 2022
- Rating ***
Clarkson starts this review by wondering if anyone has ever really dreamt of owning a Vauxhall, even the fast ones; the implication being they’re among the least desirable cars on the road. And the new Astra he was given to test had a three-cylinder, 1.2-litre engine that, in his words, makes it just about able to beat a Citroen BX diesel away from the lights.
But its “ordinariness” appealed to girlfriend Lisa, who didn’t want to get out of the car all week, it seemed, which Clarkson decided must be why Vauxhall continues to exist as a brand. “Boring sells. Look at The Archers. Look at cornflakes. That’s what the Astra is: cornflakes.”
Read ‘A dream hatchback for cornflakes eaters’ at The Sunday Times website.
Jeremy Clarkson’s favourite cars of 2022
BMW M5 CS
- Published February 27, 2022
- Rating ****
This could have received five stars, as at one point Clarkson pointedly agrees with the people on the internet who argue that it is the best BMW M5 ever.
The 2022 CS didn’t quite make that mark, though, for three main reasons, according to Clarkson: its “gearbox wanted to remain in Greta mode a bit longer than I’d have liked”; the V8 engine could have been noisier; and you can’t actually buy one — the limited production run of 2,200 examples was even cut in half, and “No one seems to know why.”
But of course, Clarkson was won over by the “slayer-of-worlds” 635 horsepower (“What a rush”), the motorsport cornering sophistication even on bumpy, potholed roads, the familiar carbon-fibre-clad interior and the understated exterior.
Read ‘Could this be the best Beamer ever?’ on The Sunday Times website.
Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS
- Published April 24, 2022
- Rating ****
The Cayman GT4 RS has the engine of the 911 GT3 in a smaller package, and Clarkson likes that. He also likes the fact that it’s ludicrously loud … “Not on the outside, mind. Only for those who are in it. Take note Jaguar, who do it, wrongly, the other way around.”
The balance, suspension set up and other mechanical trickery mean that this is, according to Clarkson, a car you can “literally fling around the place and, like all good sports cars, it reacts like an excited puppy. Squealing and wagging its tail and making barking noises.” And it’s one you’ll never want to get out of, he reckons.
The catch? Prices start at £108,000 and, because this is Porsche, “you’ll be expected to pay extra for the seats and the paint and ‘Oh, you want a key as well?’”
Read ‘Meet the noisy neighbour that everyone seems to love’ on The Sunday Times website. And check out how Driving.co.uk got on with this car here.
Ford F150 Lightning
- Published October 23, 2022
- Rating ****
Clarkson is famously not a fan of electric vehicles (“A car without an engine has no soul”), but Ford’s big battery-powered pick-up truck won him over. How? Well, 260 miles of indicated range isn’t terrible, he reckoned, given it’s so big that “you drive it from a seat that’s so far off the ground, you can look down on passing airliners.” And it can carry a ton, tow four tons and accelerate as quickly as a Ferrari F40.
What’s more, he argued, “it is quite exceptionally quiet and refined”, has a “Ford Focus-sized boot under the bonnet” and comes with a yardstick built into the tailgate because “they never forgot that the people who buy one will want to measure a log at some point.”
It’s size is ridiculous on Oxfordshire roads, and amazingly renders it too big to drive around his farm, but despite being “stupid”, Clarkson wants one. Or maybe because it’s stupid?
Read “I’ve fallen in love with an electric pick-up truck” on The Sunday Times website.
Alpine A110 S
- Published May 8, 2022
- Rating ****
The best thing about the Alpine A110, according to Clarkson, is that despite having the engine in the middle, it’s “not a plonker’s car”. This, he wrote, is because it’s so small, and therefore not threatening. “The young men of Abu Dhabi will not be going around Harrods till three in the morning in one of these, that’s for sure.”
But Clarkson also liked the raspy exhaust, the “tight and sharp and dreamy” sensation of driving it, and that the 296bhp S version still isn’t supercar-fast, which means you don’t get nervous behind the wheel. Despite being stiffer than the regular A110, the S was never uncomfortable, he added.
The only problems are that if he wanted a sports car he’d get a convertible, and because James May owns a standard Alpine A110, Clarkson couldn’t admit that it’s good in his co-presenter’s presence.
Read ‘James May is right to love this car — not that I’d ever tell him’ on The Sunday Times website
BMW M4 Competition M xDrive
- Published February 27, 2022
- Rating *****
A BMW M4 should be rear-wheel-drive, according to Clarkson, and perhaps the styling “is a bit off”, but other than those two quibbles he really couldn’t find anything to fault this car and awarded it five stars – the only model to receive the full complement this year.
It was remarkably composed downhill on black ice, for a start, which meant Clarkson avoided the same fate as several drivers who smashed up their cars at the bottom of the road. He went on to find the twin-turbo straight-six engine smooth and sonorous, and its 500+ horsepower to be the perfect amount: “Any more renders a car too scary to be much fun most of the time.”
According to Clarkson this G82 M4 Competition M also has: “the best seats ever to envelop my nether regions”; 90% of the drama of early M cars with “10,000 times” the refinement; two “perfect” driving modes that you can switch between via a button on the steering wheel; steering so good “it’s like you’re being pulled around on God’s apron strings”; an infotainment system even he could operate; and rear seats and a boot that are genuinely usable.
“It’s possible this will be the last M4 before electric drive takes over so I’m glad to see it going out in such style. Not with an especially large bang … but with a satisfied, arms folded, post Sunday lunch sense of a job really well done,” Clarkson concluded.
Read ‘This Beamer has me beaming ear to ear’ on The Sunday Times website
- If you enjoyed reading about Clarkson’s best and worst cars reviewed in 2022, you might like to check out this Classic Clarkson review of the Bugatti Veyron
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Keyword: Jeremy Clarkson’s five best and five worst cars reviewed in 2022