Even a wet December day at Brands hatch cannot dampen the glory that is Jag's normally aspirated Group C beauty. What a machine. Car will be offered at the RM Amelia Island sale, 14 March 2015.

December in Wales, a slippery Walter's Arena test stage, and 360hp of 911. Richard Tuthill's creation is one of the great driving experiences.

Chris Harris meets the Rover SD1 he hopes to race at the 73rd Members' Meeting.

Dr Wolfgang Hatz, boss of Porsche’s R&D edifice confirmed what we’d all feared last week: that from 2016 all Porsche 911 models bar the extreme GT3 versions will use turbocharged engines. It simply follows an industry-wide move to forced induction that makes me wish I’d bought shares in a turbocharger company five years ago. In the most part I’m a supporter of forced induction on everyday cars, but I have my reservations about its seep into the Porsche 911 range.

For me the base 911 has always been a high-rpm machine, and to celebrate this fact in the modern era you have to abandon all air-cooled-is-best nonsense and admit that since Porsche water-cooled the rear-engined machine, it really found an appetite for revs. With those revs came more intake sound, more excitement and, perhaps most importantly, a sense of connection with that strange chassis layout that was almost instinctive.

So I have no ideological problem with Porsche turbocharging the 911 whatsoever, but it does pose some interesting questions. The most pressing of which is surely: if they’re all going to be turbocharged, what will they call the Turbo in future? If you’re in the marketing department at Zuffenhausen, that must currently be causing a few headaches.

The practical concerns are this – the 911’s chassis is for many people a marvel of engineering over basic physics, but we don’t all subscribe to that analysis. Yes, it does at times require a different driving style, but once you’ve factored in modern rubber and the knowledge Porsche has accrued over the years, it almost doesn’t matter – with one proviso: so long as it’s normally aspirated.

Such is the breadth of the 911 range we don’t need to imagine what a turbocharged 2WD 911 might be like, we just have to remember how a 997 GT2 behaved on a cold, wet December morning. It was a handful.

Yes, the new Carrera will doubtless be a low-pressure-turbo dream that will give hardly any impression of being force-fed, but the boost will have to make itself felt at some point, and I think it might have a more corrupting influence on the 911’s key dynamic characteristics than on other sports cars.

In the mid ’90s, Porsche felt the performance of its 911 Turbo had reached a point where 4WD needed to be mandatory, and that position has never changed. A base turbo 911 for 2016 will surely have around 380hp, so does Porsche keep offering a 2WD version, or will they all need to be 4WD from 2016 onwards? It’ll be shame if you can’t buy a base 2WD 911 with a manual gearbox – a real shame.

I’m certain Porsche will find a way around the loss of induction noise, and the throttle response will be sublime for a turbo, but sitting here right now I feel a little depressed. At the end of 2011 the Carrera was a small, normally-aspirated sports car with hydraulic power steering. Just five years later it will be a much bigger car with electric steering and a turbocharger. I have no doubt it will be faster, more efficient and more comfortable – all of which fall under the heading of ‘progress’. But that just makes me think we might need to alter the criteria for judging what progress actually is.

I’m open-minded on all-turbo 911s for now, but have a lurking sense of unease.

Here's the old video. I found it and thought I'd post it. Please excuse its age and brevity, that's the way it was in early 2008! What. A. Car. Sold weeks after this was shot.

It hit 5 million views on DRIVE, but now it lives on CHOC. A trip I will never forget, and one of the greatest cars I will ever drive. A whole new thing.

918, GT3, M3, F12, 458 Speciale, Trophy R, V12 Vantage S. Amazing cars, amazing location, lots of sliding and fun. Enjoy.

Sponsored video: Porsche 991 GT3 and Megane 275 Trophy R use Pirelli's Trofeo R to see how much quicker it is than the standard rubber.

A detailed look at the car that will aim to travel at 1000mph. And then a ride with driver Andy Green in his Extra 300 stunt plane to demonstrate the G-forces he will experience during the record attempt. We love every second of this film. A truly inspirational project.

There was and is very little money in internet video. But your instincts tell you that because we love making it and people love consuming it, it must make commercial sense. Wrong answer. That assumes all market economies adhere to some form of common sense, but people still buy Priuses and drink terrible beer, so that's all bunkum.

DRAGS CHRIS HARRIS OUT OF THE ’90S

Back in the good old days, when the Prime Minister was called John and England was genuinely terrible at cricket, the gentleman who wanted genuine comfort and pace clad in a two-door body-style could choose from an extensive list of one vehicle – the Mercedes S-Class Coupé. This had been the case for the majority of the previous decade too: the gracious W126 coupé having dominated the marketplace when Bobby Ewing rocked big hair.

Unprecedented expansion of the luxury marketplace over the past decade saw the big Merc Coupé’s unchallenged position not only diminished, but in large parts of the world, decimated. Where it was once in a class of one, suddenly pretty much every über-brand could offer something as fast, as commodious and as expensive. I’ll stop short of saying they were better, or that they were more comfortable or, in the face of the monstrous S65 Coupé, any faster. But they had exotic badges and somehow a two-door S-Class, however pretty, just didn’t seem enough to lure people away from a Bentley dealership.

In fact the S-Class coupé had completely slipped my mind until last spring, and then Mercedes whipped the covers off the latest one, revealing a long, low, truly beautiful and graceful shape. It reminded me of the raw importance of design and styling – immediately Mercedes was offering a reason not to buy a Continental GT.

Driving the new Coupé in S63 form does nothing but cement that opinion. At times it doesn’t feel like it belongs to the genus motorcar because it does things so differently to anything similar in the marketplace. From the moment you open that huge door, fall into the soft-faced chair and peer at the two computer screens ahead of you it all seems more EADS than Mercedes-Benz. Play for a few minutes and you’ll have a sound driving position and then having nipped into Drive, you experience the most compelling sense of silent thrust since, well – I’m not entirely sure I’ve ever driven anything with such a combination of sheer speed and silence.

It’s quite bizarre: being an AMG there’s some exhaust woofle, but the cabin isolation from suspension and especially wind noise makes a Bentley Conti GT seem like it’s sporting a roof-rack.

And then there’s the ride comfort – real, cosseting, was-that-really-a-pot-hole? suppression. Admittedly the test car was on winter tyres which probably help a bit, but really, this car offers a blend of speed and comfort that sets entirely new standards in the class. I loved my FF, but it couldn’t hope to match this on any sensible measurement of comfort.

It’s terribly fast too. Not FF quick, but with 663lb ft of torque, even a 2070kg kerb weight doesn’t really matter. Top speed is limited to 186mph and it’ll hit 62mph in 4.2sec. If you want to travel quickly, the 585hp S63 is more than adequate.

It is dripping with technology too – Mercedes has a habit of using its biggest Coupé as a clinic for what’s coming next, and the biggest-name toy here is a chassis system that doesn’t simply adjust the loaded side of the car for flatter cornering, but actively tilts it into to turn. It is one of the most bizarre sensations available in a road car, and there’s no denying that it lends this leviathan an agility quite beyond that suggested by its vital statistics.

But I found myself feeling slightly awkward hustling the big-S: be in no doubt it can do it, the car just feels way more at home on wider carriageways. It’s more a case of social responsibility: an S63 on its door handles must look slightly alarming to other road users. Especially if it’s leaning into a corner. Given its comfort credentials, you’ll understand why I’m not too worried about none of the control surfaces offering much in the way of communication. Aim, deploy; smirk. That’s all you need do.

This is a stunningly finished vehicle too. It came with an optional Designio brown leather interior – the hide was of superb quality and whereas its predecessor shared large areas of trim and switchgear with lesser models, this feels like it belongs to a separate brand. The other change in philosophy is in the available rear-seat space – there isn’t much any more. Customer clinics suggested that the rear seats were mostly used to deposit recently garnered swag from the Dubai Mall, so they’ve made the car a little more compact and more a vast 2+2. This was probably the correct call.

The irony of replacing two slow-selling models, at least in European markets, is that the S63 now stands as a more exclusive offering against the hoards of Bentleys and suchlike. Its dynamics set new standards, to my eyes it has real presence and it will likely remain a very rare sight on UK roads. It is the best, and perhaps more importantly, the most desirable car of its type by some margin. An unexpected pleasure.

The role of the critic has long been ridiculed and lambasted for all the obvious reasons – so few of those who chose to comment on anything motorized could ever produce something approaching the quality of that which they were criticizing. The motor car is perhaps the best example of this phenomenon – at its most flamboyant the modern motor car is an amalgam of can-bus, titanium hybridity whose sophistication suggests it should be placed on a plinth and worshipped as a symbol of human excellence.

But this cleverness often sits uneasily with the unfortunate reality of the motor car – it actually has to be a usable machine to be of any use. The car is just entering era of fundamental change so profound that it might well emerge with another name, and this naturally leads to the emergence of new technologies. New ways of doing existing things and, well, just new things altogether. This is a gradual process though, and it is released by degrees, and often in the form of peripheral electronic aids.

I find these new widgets truly fascinating, but they also concern me. The people that forge these changes are so mind-scramblingly intelligent that I derive a great sense of reassurance the future of this thing I love is in safe hands. But just occasionally I wonder if each large-forehead might by way of a counterpoint, need a knuckle-dragger lurking behind them to assess the real-world results of their brain-power.

To which end, I give you the blind-spot warning system. I was confidently relying on one of these radar-driven marvels recently when I nearly drove into the side of another car. Moderately concerned, I used it again, this time leaving nothing to chance – and this extra investigation revealed that the Jaguar blind-spot assist system works well in most circumstances, except when asked to identify a blind-spot. This strikes me as being a strange use of technology.

You have to assume that Jaguar has tested its own blind-spot system, and is therefore aware that it has a few issues when confronted with the thing it is designed to counteract. Would it work better if the aforementioned luddite had been charged with seeing if he, or she, could make it work out in the field? Perhaps so.

The list of useless technologies is so long that I'll leave you to compile it. I know the good ship Jalopnik ran its own poll recently, and I agreed with most of the list. Night vision? I once tried driving on that alone, and nearly died. I can just about handle automatic wipers, but automatic main beam is up there with the quartic steering wheel for sheer idiocy. The LaFerrari's epitaph will read "Mind-bending; why the square wheel?"

Mercedes is often at the forefront of this push for ever-more ingenious driver assistance. I rather like its open-minded approach to the subject – it clearly just allows people with long lists of college qualifications to invent new ideas, then develops those ideas, foists them on new cars and awaits the response. The key here is that in the most part all of Merc's tech works when it is launched – the widgets do what they say on the tin. It just takes time to decipher what, if anything exactly, they add to the business of driving a car.

For instance – I used to think its complicated driver fatigue software was largely useless until I found myself at the wheel after not sleeping for far too long, and the dashboard of the E-Class basically told me to stop and stop being an idiot. And stop. You only need the one warning to feel the benefit.

What the brands will never admit is that the need to offer something new is mostly marketing driven, and therefore places an ominous burden on those clever people.

Yesterday I was driving a Mercedes S63 AMG coupe. In so many ways it feels like a glimpse into the future, but it is fitted with a suspension setting that actually tips the car into corners. This is quite the most bizarre sensation and, were it to be fitted to a more nimble machine I might just understand why it was there. But on a 2200 kg plutocratic, comfort-intended-super-coop? Nope, me neither. It's a bit like the 'Sport' button on most cars – you press it once, affect a quizzical glance at your passenger, and then never press it again. The S63 coupe is mighty, but it doesn't need to tip into corners.

There does appear to be something of a trend with these peripheral technology products – they almost always don't work when they are chassis-based. You can give me the most intelligent active or reactive chassis festooned with adaptive dampers and springs made from a unicorn's rib-cage and in return I will let you drive a 1999 BMW 528i Sport, running 16in rims and sports suspension and it will be better than the newfangled thing.

Technology in the field of chassis development serves one of three purposes: a marketing activity, the attempted fight against the incursion of EVER BIGGER RIMS and the need for more buttons in the cabin. Supplant the sport, dynamic, super-dooper chassis button in any car with the phrase 'makes everything ****ter' and you'll have a clearer understanding of what will actually happen when you push it.

Other fields are more successful. Well, I appear to be alone in thinking they are anyway. BMW has met huge criticism for the way it has moved to turbocharging and added 'fake' noise to the process, but I like the way the new M3 sounds. Really, I do. I suppose noise is subjective anyway, and over here in the UK loud performance cars are about as popular as politicians, so a little less exterior 'zorst shout combined with some faked intake wheeze is good beer for me. The gradual silencing of the sports car to the outside world will be the next phase, so we'd better get used to it.

Quite often the very best technology offers such a paradigm shift from the conventions of the motor car that it actually forces us to reconsider our relationship with that four-wheeled-friend. The BMW i8 is just that machine. When I first drove it last year it immediately struck me that it would be pointless to try and compare it any other conventional sports car. Its technology was that rare strain; it felt like it had been defined by the largest foreheads imaginable, and then brutally deconstructed by savages much closer to my level of behavior, to the point that it genuinely worked. It was NASA-grade science optimized for the Starbucks generation.

The i8 doesn't force you into a new form of driving, it quietly coaxes you – like a great teacher it questions whether what you were doing before was actually as good as you thought. The i8 is the happy face of technology for the sake of improvement. And the blind-spot thing works damn well, too.