It's been a hell of a year, both on PistonHeads and in the wider motoring world. We've seen the arrival of a new age of electrically enhanced supercars - hypercars as they've become known - and even driven one of them. We've seen AMG launch a turbocharged four-cylinder hot hatch, Jaguar resurgent with an all-new sports car, Porsche celebrate a significant milestone for the 911 with two extraordinary flagships for the 991 range plus a new Boxster and Cayman and Alfa Romeo attempt to reinvent the supercar as a lightweight, minimalist carbon fibre driving machine.
It's not all been good though. And here the PH team gets the annoyances and disappointments of the year off their chests. These are our biggest let-downs of the year - what are yours?
My biggest let-down of 2013?
Gran Turismo 6
, easily. I still remember the joy of Christmas Day in 2000 when my parents had bought me a PS2 and GT2. Most of my teenage years were happily spent playing GT3 and GT4 then my degree suffered thanks to GT5 until I realised it was a bit boring.
Despite some excellent new track additions and further improved physics, GT6 just hasn't moved GT on as far as it needed to in my opinion. And a lunar buggy on the moon? Really? I'd rather we had some Porsches in the game to be honest.
Dishonourable mentions for the Alfa 4C's steering wheel and all electronic parking brakes ever.
2013 World Rally Championship season
Nothing changed. As much as we may have felt privileged to witness something so remarkable, rally fans had endured a decade of dominance by a Frenchman called Sebastien. When the Greatest of all Time eventually announced his retirement from the end of the 2012 season (at the same time confirming a part-time campaign for 2013) we all believed that, at long last, the WRC would begin to deliver some real competition.
Then a dominant Frenchman called Sebastien went and won everything. The cognoscenti will point out that 2013 did deliver some intrigue and excitement; the eventual champion Ogier duking it out with Loeb in Monte Carlo and Sweden, the emergence of Thierry Neuville, the four-way fight for the win in France. The defining aspect of 2013 for me, however, was the apparent capitulation of everybody else to Ogier's superiority.
I've long wished to see the WRC reach a larger audience and it'll be thrilling fights for the title year after year that makes that happen. Here's hoping that with Kris Meeke signing for the works Citroen team and Mikko Hirvonen going back to where he belongs at M-Sport Ford, Ogier doesn't have it all his own way in 2014.
The death of the manual option
buy the arguments
for paddle-shifted gearboxes, be they dual-clutch, single-clutch or skilfully calibrated auto. In some cars I'd agree they're the preferred choice and a defining part of the car's character. And I understand the commercial realities and mainstream demand for cars with automatic gearboxes at all levels of the market.
But that three of the most significant driver's cars launched this year - the Clio 200, the 991 GT3 and Alfa Romeo 4C - didn't even offer the choice of a manual makes me sad. Speed matters but it's not everything and as the opportunities to exploit the amazing abilities of modern performance cars get fewer and fewer we look to other ways of getting the interest back into driving. And for those of us who've grown up perfecting our fancy footwork and would include that as a significant element in the satisfaction of driving a fast car skilfully not even having the option to spec a manual transmission is a shame.
Meaning all credit to next year's BMW M3 and M4, which will give us Luddites the option of three pedals rather than two paddles. They'll sell perhaps five of each. But I'll be there a few years down the line, hunting them down in the classifieds.
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