Evo (magazine)

History and profile

The first issue was produced in November 1998 as an unofficial successor to the monthly motoring magazine Performance Car, which had been closed and integrated into Car magazine by publisher Emap. "Evo" is published 13 times a year and is part of the Dennis Publishing stable of magazines. The Evo offices are situated in Wollaston, Northamptonshire. The magazine is edited by Nick Trott.

Much of what Evo is today has evolved from Performance Car. Writers such as Richard Meaden, David Vivian, John Barker (motoring journalist), and Peter Tomalin are some of the familiar faces who worked on both titles. Henry Catchpole and Jethro Bovingdon are now also regular test drivers and features writers. Russell Bulgin also contributed to the magazine. Nick Trott is evo's current editor, with former editors including Peter Tomalin, John Barker and Richard Meaden. Harry Metcalfe, who also served as editor, is the editorial director and founder.

Owned by Dennis Publishing and going by the tag-line "The thrill of driving", Evo attempts to immerse the reader in the driving experience of any particular car, and all other aspects are considered secondary to this all emotive 'drive'. While hard data is accumulated in the form of lap-times (for which Evo regularly uses Bedford Autodrome), cornering speeds, and straight-line performance figures, the subjective nature of the driving experience is the paramount factor by which cars are graded by Evo.

Many prominent members of the automotive industry and celebrity automotive enthusiasts have made contributions to Evo, including Gordon Murray, Jeff Daniels, and occasionally Rowan Atkinson. Other contributors are John Simister, Ian Fraser, Martin Buckley, David Yu, Tony Bailey, Paul Bailey, Simon George and Richard Porter.

There are also international editions of Evo for France, Italy, Singapore, Croatia, Czech Republic, Greece, Turkey, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Ukraine, India, and the Middle East They are a little different from the original, and feature more localized content relevant to the respective countries. Editors & writers of the international editions are usually invited for test drives by many performance car companies, from major marques such as Porsche, to small supercar builders such as Pagani and Gumpert.

Other contributors

In addition to the names above, it is worth noting that Evo occasionally makes reference to the term 'friends of Evo'. Some of these individuals submit contributions to the magazine, in the form of submissions outlining their experience with their own motorcars. Current such vehicles include the Porsche Carrera GT, Pagani Zonda and Lamborghini Murciélago LP640. This is a slightly different take on the 'fleet' theme often adopted by motoring publications, as the vehicles featured are often press-demonstrators.

Evo Car of the Year (eCOTY)

Evo is famous for their year-ending Car of the Year issue, inherited from Evo's predecessor publication Performance Car, in which members of the staff take the top performance cars of the year to locations suited to high-performance driving and evaluation. Most years there is also a circuit test. Scotland, Wales, France, Italy, and Portugal are some of the featured locations for eCoty.

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016