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Time for one last look into the rear-view mirror of 2013. It was, as much as anything, a year of conspicuous arrivals and departures.
The usual kick-off for the year in cars is the Detroit Motor Show in early January. This one was completely dominated by a single arrival - the mighty new Chevrolet Corvette Stingray. For the first time in its seven generations, this one really is a car engineered and built to world standards. It was one of many good indications of a rejuvenated GM.
By the end of the year, GM's global chief engineer had become CEO of the whole company. Mary Barra also happens to be the first woman to run a car company, too.
If the Detroit show belonged to the Corvette, imagine the hulaballoo at Geneva when we finally got to look at both the McLaren P1 and Ferrari LaFerrari. By that time we'd already been in a prototype Porsche 918. Carbonfibre-bodied, hybrid-assisted 900-odd-horsepower hypercars seemed to be everywhere. Not that we were bored.
They sit at the pinnacle of trends we're seeing everywhere: light bodies, downsized engines, low drag, hybrid assistance. The VW XL1 was the most utterly extreme example. Driving it was definitely the best 68bhp we ever spent. That's why we just can't wait for next year's BMW i8 - a car that sits right in the sweet spot between XL1 and 918. The signs from this year's i3 were nothing but positive.
A drive of the LaFerrari still eludes us, but we had several steers of the Porsche 918 and (a TG exclusive) the McLaren P1 (above). They're brilliant, of course, but very different from each other. And we're glad of that wider point. People said all electrically-assisted cars would feel the same, but the P1 and 918 prove that different manufacturers can endow their hybridised cars with radically different characters.
With luck a similar diversity will persist as automation takes over many of the driver's tasks. Many major manufacturers are working on this. Nissan said it'd have a self-driving car on sale by 2020. GM is right up there too. And a Mercedes-Benz S-class drove itself 60 miles through German mixed roads in normal traffic. That experimental Benz it wasn't so different from the most heavily optioned S-class you can buy right now.
The hot hatch had its best year ever in 2013. Before they arrived, we were slathering like Pavlov's dogs over the return of the RenaultSport Clio, Peugeot 208 GTI, Fiesta ST, and Golf GTI. We were hardly disappointed with any of them, and the Fiesta ST became our Car of the Year.
Written By:- Paul Horrell
More of this article on the Top gear website