Highlights of 2024: The best things we’ve done with cars this year

It’s not a given that a new car will be more fun than its predecessor these days, but the Nomad 2 is one of those cars that you try and then very quickly makes the previous model feel, well, like a previous model.

Getting the chance to show BMW M division engineers Dirk Hacker and Bernd Barbisch around familiar roads in Snowdonia back in July, in a BMW M5 prototype, felt like a special day, I must admit.

But not quite as special as the one when I met the Mika Meon, a quite brilliant electric beach buggy designed and built very close to where I live in the Midlands – and, while still pretty new, also completely unknown to me.

The Meon has a sense of integrity to it that its creator, Robin Hall, says is the antithesis of most Volkswagen-based buggies. It’s an engineer’s natural reaction, you could say – something properly engineered and executed, to right so many wrongs.

That integrity really shines through in every part of the driving experience, but it’s strongest through the car’s uncommonly sophisticated ride and steering, both of which make it a joy to drive on a winding lane, where the electric performance level is likewise supremely well judged.

Finding this car nestled in a workshop only 10 minutes from my own front door felt like spotting a £50 note under a flowerpot that you walk past 10 times every day. And I’m sure it won’t be the last time I visit it.

The only thing better than doing something you love is doing that something with like-minded mates.

I love travelling around Europe and I love motor racing, so driving my closest two friends down to southern Belgium for the Spa 6 Hours in my Renault Clio long-termer this May is something I’ll always remember fondly.

Spa-Francorchamps is one of the very best racing circuits on Earth and the World Endurance Championship is serving up the most exciting sports car racing anyone has ever seen, between a greater number of manufacturers than ever before – and yet it’s still so affordable to watch that you feel as if the vendor must have made some mistake.

WEC fans proved to be a lovely, passionate bunch too. And this isn’t to mention the fun we had exploring the cities of Lille, Aachen and Eindhoven on the way down and the way back – or indeed driving on roads that were actually maintained, fast and free from queues. Lovely weather, superb settings, fabulous cars and even better company.

When Colonel Hannah Stoy, a seriously impressive high-flier in the British Army, finished sharing her experiences and insights with the audience at this year’s Autocar Great Women event, Stellantis board member Alison Jones then came on stage and joked that her role suddenly didn’t seem quite so important. Such is perspective.

Still, Jones’s address to the audience alongside her friend and powerhouse Geraldine Ingham, managing director of Range Rover, proved no less inspirational and thought-provoking.

And then there was the cool, calm, collected Formula 3 racer Sophia Flörsch, whose eloquence, fierceness and self-belief were an inspiration to all, the German having come back to racing following one of the most breathtaking crashes I’ve ever witnessed.

One of the fundamental messages was that women are still under-represented in the automotive industry.

That’s slowly, glacially, changing and this initiative and corresponding event celebrating the most remarkable not only helps address that but also showcases the expertise and warmth of speakers and guests alike, and the camaraderie among them, and that is what makes Great Women so special.

I’ve got a little group of friends from around the globe whom I met playing Need for Speed online at the age of 14, and this year we finally met in person for the first time.

We went go-karting, took on Snake Pass in a few of our cars – Fiat Panda 100hp, Porsche Cayman and Mazda 3 – and shared in the excitement of all the cool metal that my American and Kiwi mates don’t get back home.

And that’s the real power of cars; our shared love connecting us for years despite thousands of miles of ocean separating us all. It’s a memory I’ll treasure for the rest of my life.

In a year when I got myself to the Le Mans 24 Hours for the first time, my chosen highlight feels fairly inconsequential. Equally, it may resonate.

In the spring, I was holed up in an unmemorable hotel on the cusp of an unmemorable industrial estate 10 miles north of Munich.

Feeling a bit melancholic, I went for a walk, simply to get me out of the building, and what should I stumble across but an Iso Grifo casually slung across a pavement and in well-used but apparently tidy condition.

They only made 300 of these and I’ve always loved them, mostly for the looks, and for their quirky juxtaposition of Giugiaro styling with Chevy V8 grunt; Bizzarrini did the mechanicals. The thing honestly made my day.

It’s not the easiest time to be somebody who loves cars, but unlike with many other passions, the subject matter is everywhere and anywhere, and you never know what gem you might discover next. See also: the straight-piped Carrera GT I was following on the M25 last week – and I could still hear away after it disappeared from view.

Volkswagen design boss Andreas Mindt has been likened to Scrappy-Doo for his seemingly infinite levels of energy and enthusiasm.

He is simply a joy to be around and thankfully there has been plenty of time for that here at Autocar this year as we named him our Design Hero at the 2024 Autocar Awards off the back of his stellar track record at VW, Bentley and Audi.

The very first story of mine that appeared in this magazine in 2024 came as a result of meeting him, when he provided a detailed look around the upcoming VW ID 2, and it’s the first VW since the Golf Mk7 – another Mindt design – that I’ve had a warm feeling about. It looks like a VW in a way the bloated ID 3, ID 4 and ID 5 simply don’t.

VW talks relentlessly about becoming a ‘loved brand’ again. Mindt being there and designing the cars makes that aim much easier to achieve. Hopefully, our paths will cross plenty of times again in 2025.

This probably says less about the new BMW M5 and more about how I’m just not the target customer, but the part of the M5 launch that I was most excited about beforehand was the promise of driving ‘heritage M5 models’.

They did not disappoint – not in the slightest. The V10-powered E60 was the current M5 when my love and obsession really crystallised and I’ve read so much about it. It was everything I could have hoped for.

That engine is as spine-tingling as everyone says, the automated-manual SMG gearbox isn’t as bad as some say and it just feels like a really nicely rounded sports saloon today.

But the original E28 was the one that I really fell in love with. Just opening the door and taking in the 1980s BMW smell that I remember from the family BMWs growing up had me feeling right at home.

Then I discovered that it has all the sweet throttle adjustability of a Toyota GR86, but with super-tactile steering and a motorsport-derived straight six that’s just impossibly zingy for a 3.6. And just look at it. Bucket-list stuff.

There’s a thrill to watching an expert at work up close, and this was a demonstration of precision that can only be achieved by an absolute grand master of their form. But then, I suspect the long-time operator of the excavator at the BMW Group Recycling and Dismantling Centre (RDC) has high job satisfaction.

The RDC dismantles end-of-life BMW Group test cars, while working out how to ensure future models are designed to be as recyclable as possible.

Which is where the excavator, a digger featuring a range of custom-made tool attachments, comes in. Before the car is crushed and shredded (the best way to extract materials), certain valuable bits need to be removed.

On a visit to the RDC, I had the chance to witness an i7 being recycled. First, the roof was prised open. Then the interior fittings were ripped out before the body was opened.

Finally, with a pair of pincers, the excavator delved into the heart of the car, caught the wiring loom and pulled it out, twirling it round the pincers like spaghetti on a fork until the prize broke free. Every stage was done with surgical precision, a demonstration of utterly exceptional dexterity. It was a genuine privilege to witness.

Hyundai marked the launch of the fifth-generation Santa Fe with a unique event, by sending me and other journalists up a Welsh mountain to experience ‘chabak’, the car camping craze from Korea.

Thankfully, the seven-seat Santa Fe is one of the largest cars in the UK and the new Mk5 had been set up to serve as the perfect sleeping quarters for a tired car journalist.

The views? Stunning. Sleep quality? Actually, not bad. And to top off the experience, the Santa Fe itself was deeply enjoyable to drive and great off road.

I had only half an hour before I needed to return the keys, but that was enough for the Porsche 930 Turbo to both scare me silly and render me dumbstruck.

This whale-tailed slice of 1970s excess has always stood proud in my psyche as an emblem of automotive nirvana, a motoring icon whose legacy towers over most sports cars conceived in the decades since.

Plus, as a firm believer that the best engines are rear-mounted and air-cooled, I’ve always been more reverential of Porsche’s seminal supercar than any contemporary Ferrari or Lamborghini. Clichés be damned: if this wasn’t a meet-your-hero moment, what is?

Thankfully, my reverence was undented by the collision between fantasy and reality. The ferocity of its power delivery and the tightness of its chassis belies its 1970s origins, though the slight unpredictability of each was enough to instil in me a new appreciation for the growing proliferation of driver assistance systems…

I finally went to Villa d’Este this year. I’ve admired this concorso d’eleganza for years, through print, social media and the ramblings of friends and colleagues.

Initially, it was a whirlwind. The grounds are even grander and more impossibly Italian than they look in pictures.

The cars, too, were insane. Never has a BMW 507 felt so ineffective at wowing. But, truth be told, I felt a bit out of place. I do not smoke Gran Habanos. I am not a Swiss commodities trader. I am from Peterborough.