What You Bring With You.

  

All the way out Hwy. 170 on the way to Bodie, I was thinking to myself how nice it would have been to have brought my car instead of hers.  How fun the little Alfa would have been on the twisting mountain road, fresh, high altitude air spilling into the cockpit, warm sun reflecting off chrome.  How charming the whole experience would be, without all the casual modernity of my girlfriend’s Saturn Ion.  Then she drove right off the end of the pavement as the “highway” rather suddenly turned to dirt.  Where the Alfa would have shaken its doors off moments before beaching itself on a small rock, the little Saturn continued untroubled along an increasingly unsurfaced surface.  It wasn’t the first time, nor the last that weekend, that having a modern, practical car was something for which to be thankful.  

Human beings can bond with just about anything, but the charm-free zone that is the interior of a Saturn Ion sedan should test that theory to its limits.  On this trip however, the little car performed all that was asked of it, and in so doing, enabled one of the nicest, most fulfilling road trips of my life.  The eastern Sierra Nevada are an amazing collective experience; In three days that Saturn took us to everything from a former concentration camp, to the oldest trees on Earth.  In between, there was a ghost town, four volcanoes, a huge salt lake, and many hours of excellent bird watching.  In the process, the car was transformed from a basic utility into a repository for memories of a great adventure.

  As an enthusiast, I’ve spent countless hours thinking about what car I wanted to drive where.  Although I love racing, I have little time for dreaming about racing cars, or track days, because to me cars are about where they can take you, and how they get you there.  Like, I suspect, a lot of us, I’ve tended to emphasize the conveyance over the destination.  But for all its romance, a good road trip will scrap most of your idyllic daydreaming for more practical concerns, and in the process, remind you that the road matters as much as the car.  For every mile of seductively sinuous asphalt that weekend, there came a point where we would have had to stop and get out of the sports car, and into an inconveniently unavailable off-roader.  The Saturn never missed a beat, never made a fuss, never even seemed to notice that it was being used for something far beyond its maker’s intent.

  Cars are storytellers in their way; they carry their history with them wherever they go.  Some of them come to you with stories already hanging from their mirrors, and it can be easy to forget that an old car was once new, and not suffused with the weight of memories.  What will one day become period charm is usually the practicality of simply building a new car at the time, and treasured patina the buildup of years of constant use.

  A Saturn Ion sedan may never be a sought-after classic.  It is unlikely that one of the worst-regarded products of GM’s history will transcend its troubled birth to find fond remembrance in popular culture.  At best, it’s likely to be relegated to the kitsch status afforded the likes of Nash Ramblers and Ford Pintos.

  For me though, this one example of the car has already become something more.  Kitsch is often just a veneer of irony, covering genuinely positive feelings for a a faithful appliance.  In this sense, this particular Ion has acquired a charm which my Spider, for all the history instilled in it from day one, and all the patina wrested from the years since, has yet to replicate.  It has joined the ranks of  the sky blue Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser and yellow Volkswagen Super Beetle that were the first cars of my life.  It has, by enabling through practicality, become a part of what may be one of the nicest chapters of my own story, and ours.

  Sometimes, it’s not how you get there, it’s simply the act of going that matters, and the stories of others, no matter how dramatic, are no substitute for miles rolled off under you own wheels, on the way to wherever you’re going, and who you’ll be when you get there.

Just a few shots.

A couple shows happened in the last two weeks.  I didn't take a lot of pictures, but I thought I'd share a few.  I'm pretty sure that's the first Lea-Francis Twin High Camshaft engine I've ever seen.  If memory serves, that was the motor in the first Ginetta.  So there's a quite trivial bit of trivia for you...

Book Review:

I recently wrote a review of Michael Keyser's new book, Eighty Four Hours of Endurance, for MMR/Racemaker Press, and here it is.

A Test That Makes Me Think. Mostly About Why I Care, But Also Other Things.

  Ah, here they are.  Two not-quite-natural competitors, reconfigured to produce- faster not-quite-natural competitors...
  And yet, it feels somehow inevitable that the Nissan GTR Nismo, and Chevrolet Corvettte Z06 should meet, and do battle in the media.  By being top-tier, uprated products, and flagships for their respective brands, they meet at a nexus of marketing philosophy, and corporate peacocking.  They are the identity cars for the current incarnations of the marques from which they spring.
  They are also both cars that I, as an unemployed car blogger, cannot hope to afford, and which I would be unlikely to purchase if I could. With the near $80K it would take to buy a new Z06, I would be looking everywhere for both a Matra Djet, and a Tornado Talisman.  Had I the $150K necessary to secure a Nismo, I would drop nearly everything else in life, and go in search of a derelict De Tomaso Valellunga, the services of an old guard race engineer/fabricator, and a drivetrian composed of a Cosworth FVA, and a Hewland MKIX in a effort to produce my dream fast road/track day beast.
  And yet, I find myself thinking about which car I'd want.  Maybe it's because neither tick all the right boxes.  Maybe it's because I like variety.  Somehow, this completely irrelevant video caught my attention this morning, and kept it.  These two are poles apart in the way they go about creating speed.  They're also quite close in terms of overall performance.  Neither is really my thing, both are quite neat, and for once the test doesn't succeed in making me want the loser more, except maybe when I listen to it.  Both are quite expensive.  Both are relatively cheap.  And both are more than fast enough to render which is faster a moot point; which is fortunate, because as points go, it's far from clear.
  Some days all it takes is a couple neat cars, a nice road, an open, fast track, and a racing driver who talks like your conspiracy theory spouting uncle...

My Car Get's New Springs, And I Contemplate A New Car...

I think I've mentioned my Alfa Romeo in passing, but since I basically stopped writing this blog for more than two years, I should probably explain that i bought an Alfa Romeo.  So here goes.

  I bought an Alfa Romeo.

  It's a Spider, a 1972, and I had to look for it for about five months, and get it back from San Francisco to SoCal.  That was August of 2013, a few months after my terminally unreliable Ford Focus SVT finally stopped breaking down because it stopped running at all.
  So far, it's worked out to be more reliable than the Ford, and it's a complete car, which is more than I can say for the first Alfa Spider I bought, a 1974 which has since moved along to a friend who can weld.  The car was, and continues to be in terrific shape, especially considering the price I paid for it. I love driving it.  I love looking at it.  It's my only car, which contributes nicely to the development of my bicycling skills.  The previous owner had lavished a lot of time, money, and care on the car.  The only thing he did wrong, was lower the front via a set of mismatched IAP springs.
  To a degree, this is an understandable impulse with a 105-series Alfa Spider.  The cars have a nose up stance that some find off putting.  I'll agree that it's not the most sporty pose to strike, but I actually rather like it, and think it fits the upright elegance of the car.  More importantly, lowering the front of the car has functional drawbacks.  It throws the camber out of whack, and it reduces the already marginal ground clearance.  This aspect is made all the more potentially catastrophic by the fact that the lowest part on the front of a 105-Series is the sump.  The finned, cast aluminum sump.  Were it not for the add-on sump guard, I would have gone through about fifteen of these things in the last year.  The car would ground out over anything from speed bumps, to freeway compressions.  All for the aesthetically dubious goal of making an Alfa Romeo Spider mimic the stance of a Charger Daytona.

  Yesterday, I picked up the car with the IAP springs in the trunk, and the original set nestled in their perches, and now the car looks like this.

  So that's nice.  It also rides a lot better, steers lighter and sweeter, and should stop eating front tires.  Yes, I should have done this months ago.  All the car needs now is a couple front tires, and a new speedo cable, and it's good until it breaks again.  Which makes the next thing I have to say, a bit odd.

  I think I might let the Alfa go, at least for a bit, and get another car.  The reasons why are complicated, and a bit unpleasant.  It involves someone stealing my father's car from in front of my apartment while on loan to me, and the idea of letting him have my car.  He now says he does' want it, but in the interim, an interesting alternative presented itself in the form of a 1974 Fiat X1/9.

  I recently wrote an article for Driven World Magazine (it's on page 25) about these little cars, and the fact that they're among the least appreciated (financially at least) of all classic sports cars.  More to the point, I've wanted to own one for almost as long as I've wanted an Alfa Romeo Spider.

  So there's a potential deal, and it may or may not happen, and I can only afford to keep and house one car...  The Fiat isn't a long-term prospect, and I'd have to put the interior and trim back on the car, but it does come with a nice set of Campagnolo wheels.  It also comes with some of the best handling of any car I've driven, and styling courtesy of one of my favorite pens of the period, Marcello Gandini.

  So, there's that.  And I'm kind of excited at the prospect of owning a real driver's car for the first time since my lamented Nissan 240 SX went away on the back of a truck.  It's not that the Alfa isn't a drivers car in most respects, but it's chassis isn't the stiffest, and it's so nice to just sit back and enjoy cruising around in it that you tend to adopt a pace rather than dictate one.  The Fiat is a more focused beast.  It's also almost irrationally underrated, and under priced, so I don't think I'll get hurt on the investment.

  And now I really want the thing.  I want to drive around in a tiny, baby Lamborghini for a while.  in basic template it matches so many of my favorite cars.  I've driven the car before, and I know just how fun it can be.  I just don't want to give up my Alfa to do it...

Alfa's New, Terrible Ad

  Alfa Romeo may hold the record for glorious failure.  I struggle to think of another major manufacturer that has survived on laurels past for as long, has managed to move as much inferior product by comparing it to all-but-forgottten triumphs, and has produced as many happy owners of cars that slowly ruin their lives.
  I say all of the above as a proud Alfa Romeo owner, whose car is sitting at home right now, because it's a little cold out by the standards of Southern California, and it all but refuses to start.  This is the classic Alfa owner dynamic.  It long ago became cliche; especially in the US, where the youngest cars are now aged some twenty years since the marque packed up its things in 1994.  In the rest of the world, the company has long moved on to producing cars of greater quality and reliability, but far less character; to the point where the glories of old have perhaps never been more important, or less relevant.
  So perhaps it's not surprising to watch Fiat-Chrysler bring this bullshit...

... in an effort of re-launch the brand in the US.

  I'm... I'm honestly not sure where to begin; with the hackneyed automotive cliches, or the fact that the people writing and speaking about the cliches, clearly don't even understand them.  Talking about how the essence of your brand "defies description" is just lazy and melodramatic.  The appeal of Alfa Romeo's cars isn't an unsolvable mystery.  Alfas are cars that place an emphasis on enjoyment, style, and character, and over time their quirks reenforce a Stockholm Syndrome-like bond with their owners.  The 4C stands to add proudly to that tradition.
  Unfortunately, Fiat-Chrysler seem to think you only want to buy it because it looks like a butt, specifically, a female butt.  This point is rammed home as the throaty narrator speaks about the "inexplicable design of the 4C" while a female butt slides across the frame, and onto a man.  Her butt is only one of several female body parts in the commercial, all of them bringing a man some kind of pleasure and arousal.

This post is making me angry, so I put this here to remind me that I actually like these cars.

  This is perhaps the number one cliche about Italian cars; that they somehow equate to women, and that driving them is like great sex.
  Here though, is an ad that plays on that idiotic notion to an extent I have never seen.  Alfa couldn't spell the idea out any clearer had they intercut the scene where the (Male, because of course he is.) customer avatar uses his mad driving skills to switch on launch control, and let the car do all the work of getting from 0-60, with footage of an ejaculating penis, and overdubbed the engine with a satisfied grunt.  Why not just come out and say "It looks like a cute ass!  And you can drive it, dudez!  You can drive that sweet ass!"  They could also point out that this ass never wants to talk about your relationship while you're trying to eat a sandwich (Amirite?!), and only makes appropriate purring (no muffler), and gasping (wastegate chuff) noises, in response to your masterful caresses.
  Your car, any car, is not an attractive woman.  Driving it, no matter how fun, is not like having great sex.  And if you think it is, then you've never had great sex, because no matter how much fun you're having while driving, the car isn't getting anything out of it.  Everything you feel from the car was put there by an engineer.  All the feel, all the performance, the car is an appliance designed and built with the intent of giving you that.  If that's what you think great sex is, then you're not looking for sex at all, you're looking to masturbate against another human being.
  If that's a bit much from a car blog, well, this ad really gets under my skin.  I love Alfa Romeo, and I like when other people love it.  This ad makes that all more difficult, and it's completely unnecessary.  The 4C is a car that sells itself.  It's a tiny bauble of a thing.  It's exceptionally pretty, obviously quick, and designed to be enjoyable first, and useful, well, last.  All Alfa had to do was take a few nice photos of the car, and put them on TV.  Job done.  People of all walks of life could create all the fantasy and pretense needed to justify the purchase price.  And a lot of those people, would have been women.
  They still might be, but for every woman who has seen this ad, the purchase will now carry an extra cost, a need to overcome the message, and an understanding that they're not the customer Alfa is looking for, but are at best another lifestyle accessory, that customer might wish to acquire.
  On my ridiculously limited friends list there are female Robotics Engineers, College Administrators,  Archeologists, Story Producers, Writers, Editors, Executives...  Many of them would have liked this car.  Some might have bought one because they had the means, and loved it.  Some would have made sacrifices to buy one, and loved it all the more.  In short, they are no different from the men I know, and Alfa has just told all of them that they don't matter as customers, only as props in advertising.
  All of which leaves me feeling more than a little sad.  I really wanted this car to be a success, to be Alfa's actual glorious relaunch in the US.  Sure, it already turned out to weigh more than the new Mazda MX5, and the steering isn't nearly as good as it should be, and it's not exactly inexpensive, but it stood a chance of introducing a new generation of Americans to the joy having Alfa Romeos around.  It could have made people want beautiful, exciting cars.  Now though, I sort of want the whole thing to backfire.
  I just don't want a company who excludes half my friends to succeed.  So ladies look into a Porsche Cayman, or a new MX5; they're better driver's cars anyway.

Why Don't I Ever Find These Barns?

  Well, the world of seriously expensive classic cars, just got a big shock.  It turns out that about 60 lost classics, some of them of quite serious value, have been rotting away in France for decades, while no one was paying attention.  They are now.  The collection, which includes the Ferrari California and Maserati A6G/2000 that appear in the picture, will be sold at Retromobile, in February.  The list of cars includes just about every name you've ever wanted to see in your garage (With the notable exception of ATS), and several you probably never knew to want, including a Mathis, which I still have to look up.  There are an almost silly number of Talbot T26s listed.

  And thankfully, someone made a nice video of the cars before moving them.  It's a bit haunting, and very pretty, and it's not every day that these sorts of finds get documented so wonderfully before being moved, and broken up.  Anyway, here it is.

  It'll be interesting to see how much of a feeding frenzy happens when these cars hit the block.  I sort of assume that they weren't sold at the collections original liquidation because they weren't in a condition that would make the sale profitable.  But with process of reiteration projects rapidly approaching parity with those of perfect cars, we could see money changing hands on an amazing/depressing scale.

  The discovery is timely, because it turns out that the LaFerrari-based FXX K that Ferrari debuted yesterday, has already sold out.  This would have left the billionaire enthusiasts of the world scratching their heads, looking for something to buy themselves for Christmas.  A problem which is now solved also by this not-at-all-vaporware resurrection of the Willys-Interlagos version of the Renault-Alpine A-108, on which you can absolutely, factually spend a not-at-all-unreasonable $466K.  It's nice to have choices...

As for the FXX K, well, I'm still really not sure about these track day dominators.  You could buy and run an obsolete F1 car for about the same money, and get stuck behind slower cars even more of the time, if that's your goal.  I do wonder if anyone will ever manage to bring this and McLaren's P1 GTR together, but I gather Ferrari have strictly forbade the event.  My other problem with it, is that I actually think LaFerrari is a pretty car, and they've gone and done this to it...

  Speaking of LaFerrari, I haven't seen one yet.  I've ridden in a P1, but the prancingest of horses, along with Porsche's 918, has so far eluded even my sight.  It's a situation I'm hoping to resolve this Sunday, at the 11th annual Motor4Toys car show in Woodland Hills.  It's always a great event, and it supports a great cause.  If you're in the area, I recommend checking it out.

  I plan on bringing an unwrapped toy and my Alfa Spider, bald front tires and all.

Bond has a new car that isn't, and evo. have done two thirds of a test we'd all like to see.

  More on the above, later.  First bit's first.  evo. magazine have gotten a McLaren P1 and a Porsche 918 together for the first time, and it went... well, not quite like we would have expected.

  For some reason, I keep underestimating the Porsche.  Yes, it's heavy, but it's also very powerful, and very torquey, and everyone who's driven it has taped about how fast it is.  Meanwhile, CAR Magazine is busy with the other bit of this test, managing to smuggle a LaFerrari out of Maranello, for a rendezvous with a P1.  Different drivers, different conditions, roads vs. track; it's not a very good situation, but I fear it will be a while before we get to see all three cars tested together.  Someone needs to do it though, because I need my vicarious throttle-jollies.

  But on to less important matters.  The makers of the next James Bond movie released a bunch of tidbits to the press this morning, and inevitably, the question of Bond's next vehicle came up.  Unsurprisingly, it will be an Aston Martin.  Shockingly (But again, not really surprisingly) Aston have nothing interesting enough in their current stable, so they've had to make something up.  Of course, that's not how Aston themselves put it.  They're building ten of them, and there's no word on any of them being for sale.  There's also no word on specs/drivetrain/chassis/ but I'd be amazed if it turns out to be anything but a dressed up V12 Vantage.  Aston don't really have the money to build an all new car at the moment.  It's a shame really, I'd like to see Bond driving a car to which one could aspire, even one for which I could never hoe to assemble the money.  By removing the car completely from reality, I really feel like something has been lost.  Then again, this all takes place in Bondland, where casting Monica Bellucci at 50 is the kind of incredibly forward thinking decision for which a director "deserves credit," and not the simple technicality of a 25 year old Monica Bellucci not having existed for 25 years.

  The other issue with letting Aston Martin make believe, is that there are a least two perfectly relevant Bond Cars on the market, or hitting it momentarily.  One is Jaguar's F-Type R Coupe.  The other is even more suitable, with one tiny drawback...

  Look, it's not like Bond has never had a German car, but he's only done so when in terrible movies. Still, with the lack of anything British that fits the bill, I think the producers should have given a little consideration to the AMG GT.  This is honestly the first Mercedes-Benz I've found really exciting since... what, the CLK GTR, and it's totally a Bond Car?  Also, it looks like this car actually works.

  On that note, I'm done here for today.  It's been raining for the last two days in  Los Angeles, and I'm eager to go for a ride, and then a drive.

Toyota's First Attempt At Simple Fun:

For everyone who's ever said that the GT-86/FR-S is too slow to be fun.

My First Column For Driven World Magazine

This is a piece I wrote, which appeared in the August 2013 issue of Driven World Magazine:

  It was about 15 miles South of Bakersfield that the Ford began running on three cylinders.  The car had, in the last two years, become the bane of my existence.  Enough so that the Ginetta G15 that Brian and I were going to see, was almost certainly a step up in reliability.  With plans already in the works to scrap the car, we decided to press on, all the way to Fresno and back.  The journey hadn’t exactly been planned, it had just sort of happened.  We should have taken a different car, but left in a rush, in a Focus that often fails to make it across town.  It was going to be a long, hot trip, and the CD player had failed years before.  Somehow, none of it really mattered.  

  Brian has been a friend for decades, but the last few years, since I moved from the O.C., have seen fewer and fewer times to get together.  And so, it was a chance for old friends to talk, and that’s what we did.  We talked about life since high school, and the Army.  We talked about marriages past and present, about the looming borderland of turning forty.  About high school reunions, why we don’t really want to go to them, lost friends, lost cars, and the way that life just never seems to go to plan.  All that time, the landscape changed around us.

  The Eastern San Joaquin Valley is a long, flat pan.  Hwy. 99 moves through it in a series of straight lines, bordered by Oleanders and gigantic Eucalyptus trees.  To the East of the Hwy, row crops run into the distance, flashing by in that distinctive Doppler Effect visual, that seems to curve their straight lines.  On the horizon, the San Emigdio Mountains, recede into Tehachapis, then the sharper peaks of the Sierra Nevada.  The route is dotted with the kind of wide spots in the road that haven’t changed much since they were founded, except to grow a Starbucks or a Quizno’s.  Many of them have strange names like Ducor, and Colinga, having seen them shortened on USGS maps, from proper names like Dutch Corners, and Coaling Station A.  Through all of it, the Focus carried us with a labored sense of dignity.  It’s always been a trusty beast; albeit one that was never put together properly.

  We got to Fresno all right.  After a couple turnarounds, we got to the house we’d been seeking.  The Ginetta, all 875cc and 1200lbs of it, was in great shape.  I was even able to fit in it.  We talked with the owner, and started looking into what was needed for the car to be driven on the road.  The owner had listed a bunch of stuff that he thought the car needed; enough to make a show queen too nice to drive.  As seen, it was the kind of car I love, usable, and original.

  We started for home.  The engine thrummed toward Los Angeles, on three all the way.  The conversation went on as the sun gradually plunged toward the horizon.  It was an adventure, and a re-acquaintance.  We realized that it had been a year since we’d seen each other, and lamented the road trips we hadn’t taken last summer.  It all took place in a room, moving from place to place, through places we would never see, but from the seat of a car.  

My mother once said to me, “I think I did something wrong, raising you.  You’re never comfortable without wheels moving under you.”  I disagree on the former, but the latter is definitely true.  There are many reasons cars appeal to me; probably as many as there are cars.  But one of my favorite things about them is the way they provide time in our lives.  They’re often seen as time wasters.  Who out there likes sitting in traffic?  But on trips like this, cars take on a distinct feel of space moving through space.  They bring us places, so much more quickly than we would be able to get there without them.  Soichiro Honda famously believed that the time your car saved you in travel, could be counted at the end of one’s life as extra years.  But in another way, cars give us time, to think, to talk, and to be away from the world.  Some of my best thinking and ideas come behind the wheel.  Cars have more than a few draw backs.  But I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather sit quietly with a friend, sip a cup of coffee, and chat.

Oh, someone put a deposit on the Ginetta the day before I called back.  Better luck next time…

My Thoughts

New Pagani Titillates With Fetishy Clips Of Fetishiness.

I didn't even bother putting up the first teaser video for Pagani's new car. Unless you like watching the lower jaw of a man drink coffee, there was little point.
This time, it's a little different. First off, we now know the car's name... maybe. It should be called the Huayra. One supposes that's because "Zonda" was too easy to say. Secondly, this video actually seems to show a side of the car, namely the inside.
And what an inside! Pagani have, for years, been fighting a battle with Dutch supercar make Spyker for the title of World's Most Ornate Dash, and the Huayra looks set to build on the Zonda's fussy, decadent Flash Gordon theme.
Whatever carbon fiber there is in the interior (the car is constructed largely from the material) doesn't seem to make appearance in the video. What is there, in large quantities, are different finishes of aluminum, lots of nicely stitched leather, and iridescent blue lighting.
Depending on your point of view, it either looks like Spock's tricorder, or a dominatrix' cubicle. That smooth, phallic (and cold) looking handbrake lever would seem to indicate the latter.
Still, as the Huayra is rumored to be packing North of 700bhp, from a twin-turbocharged 6.0 liter V12, I doubt anyone is going to complain if it's a little kinky on the inside...

Official: Lotus Sell Out.

"Simplicate, then add lightness." -Colin Chapman

Long ago, when the world was young, gas was cheap, and driving your car off a cliff was generally seen as your problem, there was born a man named Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman. In time, young Colin would become an engineer, and in a quest to prove some of his ideas, he built a racing car and name it Lotus. Whatever else he may have done with his life, was from that moment on, a moot point; the bug had bit, and a gift had been given to driving enthusiasts the world over.

Lotus has a always been a car apart. While other manufacturers in Britain were fooling around with bits of tin, and big, iron blocks and heads, Chapman combined innovative engineering, with advanced materials, to spin design into cars that were sophisticated, light, deceptively simple, and fast. From early, space-framed sports racers, based on bits of Austin Sevens, there eventually came road cars, such as the dual purpose Lotus Seven, and the wonderful, Type-14 Elite. These cars, especially the Elite, with its all glass fibre construction, established a pattern and reputation for innovative, competitive designs, that fell apart constantly, but inspired loyalty like few others. If the cars were fragile, who could blame them? They were built down to the minimum tolerances, and the same things that made them difficult, made them extraordinary.

Through good times and bad Lotus have largely kept those core values of light weight and innovation. From winning the Formula One World Championship seven times between '63 and '78, to a string of highly regarded road cars like the Elan, Europa, and Esprit, Lotus have always been at the forefront of using technology and design to produce cars that are a joy to drive.

And today, they ruined all of it...

We knew about the third resurrection of the Elite. Debuted last week, it's a pretty thing, if a little like a Ferrari California. That likeness betrays the rot that has set in. This is a Lotus like none that has come before. A GT, with a retractable hardtop, weighing-in at a frankly astonishing 3,700lbs. Light this is not. It will, however, be fast, relying as it does on the brute force of Toyota's 5.0 liter V8... and a supercharger... and a hybrid assist.



But that was just a teaser. Today, Lotus have dropped no fewer than four new concepts, all of which seem destined for development and production. The new Elite, will be joined by an Elan, and Esprit, and new Elise, and something called the Eterne. All of them suffer the same lack of essential Lotus-ness. They're overweight, powered by big, heavy engines, and are generally disappointing.

Stangely, it's the least Lotus like among them, that I'm closest to being okay with. The Eterne is a new four-door that shares its platform with the Elite. It's large, heavy, and ugly, but it will sell, and it doesn't disfigure the legacy of a great Lotus with its name. Lotus may need to produce cars like these in order to stay alive, but using the Elite name on a car that weighs more than two Type-14s, is a disgrace. At best though, the Eterne looks like someone left a Porsche Panamera in a rock tumbler...



The new Elan is another matter. It's apparent here that Lotus wants to go straight for the Aston's V8 Vantage. They've done it by using a 4.0 liter 450bhp V6 and another supercharger, which is necessary lugging around the 2,850lb weight. For comparison, an original Elan weighed in at about 1,600lbs.

The new Esprit is no less troubling. It uses the same 5.0 V8 as the the Elite and Eterne. It was rumored to use the LFA's V10, but apparently Toyota haven't been forthcoming with that wonderful motor. A shame, that, as the compact 4.8 liter V10 weighs less than the V6 in the Elan, let alone the V8 being used here, which might have helped keep the Esprit's 3,200lb weight under control. This is the car I have the most problems with. It has no reason to exist. I will undercut most of its competitors, but will offer substantially less in terms of engineering. It will be heavier than most, and slightly more powerful. It will be rear drive, but also comes solely with a flappy-paddle gearbox. It's less of an Esprit, and more a De Tomaso Pantera.



Last is the Elise. This car makes for the most interesting comparison with its predecessor as it's a direct replacement. It's turbocharged, with 316bhp from a 2.0 liter four, and it weighs 2,400lbs, a gain of about 400lbs. All in all, that's not too bad, but I think it could be better. Other sports car manufactures are producing lighter, leaner, more elemental cars. This one is now too much like a Boxster, and it weighs almost as much as a Miata. Lotus can do better, and it should. At least this one looks sort of neat.



They all sort of look the same though, and none of them look like a Lotus. I think that's because they're not. Lotus is now Proton, through and through. For a long time, Lotus Malaysian masters have taken a hands off approach. That seems to be changing rapidly. I'm sure Lotus have engineered these cars themselves, but they've done so to Proton's directive.

I don't think it will work. Lotus has tried to move upmarket in the past, but they're too small to provide the same level of product completeness of larger fish like Porsche, Ferrari and Aston. They've been able to compensate to an extent by offering off, beat engineering-lead solutions for the problem of making a performance car. Here though, they seem to have lost even that. These cars bring nothing new to the table, and relinquish their light weight birthright in pursuit of mass market acceptance.

They come up short on all counts. The Ferrari 458 Italia and McLaren MP-412C are more advanced and lighter than the new Esprit. The Esprit compensates with slightly more power. Lotus now find themselves ceding home ground to their rivals. The cars may be profitable. They may even be enjoyable to drive. But they're not Lotuses.

Forgive them Colin, for they know not what they do...

Images Pilfered From: Autoblog

1987 IMSA GTP, Laguna Seca.

Laguna Seca is a bit magical even in its current, MotoGP inspired layout. The original track though, must have challenged Riverside as one of the fastest tracks on the west coast. I was looking for footage of the old track this week, when I stumbled across this broadcast of a GTP race there in 1987. It features the usual gaggle of Porsche 962s, as well as a Group 44 Jag, a Nissan ZX-GTP, and a seriously powerful "Corvette." It also features drivers such as David Hobbs, John Morton, Price Cobb, and even Brian Redman!

The combination of cars with power outputs ranging between 750-1000bhp, and a track layout that's virtually flat out for the first four turns leads to some very quick and exciting racing.

So, without further delay, let's commence!



Did I mention it's 12 clips long? It's the whole race though, so it's worth it.



One of the things thrown into stark relief by all of this, is the extent to which we've become accustomed to tracks that are designed to slow cars down. The pace of this race is furious from green to checker, and far from terrifying, it looks fun, and the drivers seem to really enjoy it. I'm beating a bit of a dead horse here, but modern F1 looks slow by comparison, even though the cars are much faster.

One also suspects that tracks like Laguna Seca don't fit the modern Ecclestonian ideal of "racing stadiums." with guaranteed sight lines only for those who pay extra for grandstand seating, and a clean, almost antiseptic layout. Tracks like this are leftovers, from an era when the people who ran racing liked racing, as well as money...

Lion

Dawn, La Sarthe, 06/20/1993: A Peugeot 905 streaks through the French countryside beneath a gray, hazy sky. Eleven into twenty-four of the toughest hours of racing on Earth. Twenty-four punishing hours at the head of a screaming, F1 derived V10. The result? Third place. It is often said that just finishing at Le Mans is an accomplishment. It is also the truth.

Zagato Build New Tubolare. Behold The TZ3.

There are still conflicting reports as to whether this car, which Zagato debuted at the Villa D'Este Concourse last weekend, uses the 4.7-liter V8 from Alfa Romeo's8C competizione, or a smaller 4.2-liter (probably still Ferrari derived). A dedicated racing car, it uses a combined carbon/tubular structure (or tubular carbon structure, the internet still isn't sure) and aluminum bodywork to keep its weight down to 1,870lbs (and, one presumes, to justify the TZ label), which Jalopnik seem to think is really light for a racing car.



It isn't. While the TZ3 is rather light by modern road car standards (undercuting a US market Lotus Elise by almost 190lbs), it is, by the traditional standards of Tubolare Zagato Alfa Romeos, a bit of a porker. Assuming the reported weight is correct the new car is giving away 415lbs to its TZ1 ancestor, and a frankly staggering 481lbs to the follow on TZ2. That's a lot to make up, and is slightly surprising given that, unlike road cars, racing cars haven't seen huge weight gain due to legislation and increased demand for content. If the tubular carbon reports are true the weight becomes even harder to explain.



Still, with 420 horsepower on tap, it should be quite quick, and is quoted as dispatching 0-60mph in 3.5sec, and having the ability to run on to nearly 190mph. That would seem to be enough to qualify as a fast road car. Whether or not it's enough to make it competitive depends entirely on the class in which it ends up racing.



Of course it's a one-off, and I can only speculate that its construction must have cost at least the price of one of the twelve TZ2s ever made; so it certainly isn't an inexpensive way to go racing. Still, what price a fantasy at this level? What the TZ3 is, beyond all doubt, is fabulous looking, especially by current competition car standards. Nothing on today's race tracks looks half this good. The shape is certianly derivative of both 1960s TZs, but it's handled with so much more flair than the slightly pudgy looking 8C, as to make one of the most stylish cars of the last few years look staid. As a toy, the TZ3 has got to rank near the top of the list; and we can only hope that Zagato are inspired to make more of them. Christmas is coming...

Pointless Car Sets Contrived Record, Audio/Video Still Epic.

The Ferrari 599XX isn't a car about which I can care much. Funny, I know, but I can't really see spending a cool one and a half million dollars for a car I can't take home, or ever use on the road. I'm sorry, but aside from the Enzo-derived, 700hp V12, I'm afraid Ferrari's not-really-a-racer for rich not-really-a-racers leaves me a bit cold.

And now, Ferrari have really gone out of their way to show just how far out of their way they have to go in order to inject some legitimacy into the XX program. In the spirit of the times, Ferrari have ventured to the Nürburgring's Nordschleife and set a very impressive lap-time; they also seem to have hit a bit of a snag. Very impressive ring-times are very impressive and all, but they're nothing without context. And that proves to be a bit of a problem when you're trying to sell a non-road worthy sports car that costs millions. See, most of the cars setting advertisable lap-times are road cars, and almost all of them are significantly cheaper.

Ferrari though, are a clever bunch, and where others might have seen a problem, they jumped at opportunity. If they couldn't set the production car lap record, they could invent a record for "production-derived" cars... yup.



As you can see, and hear, it's all very glorious. Fast too, faster than most all but a few cars to run the Green Hell. And Ferrari have managed to make it all sound like a big deal. The 599XX is now the absolute fastest production derived car to lap Germany's great bullshit dectector.

There are two problems with all of this:

The first is Britian's Radical, and their SR8, a road-legal sports car that just happens to be racing-derived. It's really little more than a racing car with indicators, and road-legal tires. The plucky Brits, have however, defied the cynics, and driven their car across Europe to the ring, set a time ten seconds faster than the 599XX, and driven home triumphant. The 599 arived on a trailer, as it always must.

The second is the unfortunately christened Gumpert Apollo Sport and its 7:11:57 lap. The Apollo (Let's just forget the surname for the moment)is a production car, period, and also set its time on street tires.

Granted, neither of these are cars you would probably want to use regulary. They're impractical as transport, and in the Apollo's case, thirsty. But at least they have the ability to work on the road, which is where I think cars belong. Fast, glorious, and loud as it is, the 599XX just isn't really a car to me; it's a toy, and one that is far too expensive for anything it does to be relevant. Thank goodness, I guess, that Ferrari has seen the light, and derived from it, a truely usable supercar, in the form of the 599 GTO, a car which, it is to be hoped, can compete on an even playing field.

Buemi's Front End Goes Boom.

Sebastien Buemi's Toro Rosso loses both front wheels simultainiously in practice for Grand Prix China. Apparently a suspension arm failed, causing the uprights to fail, and cutting the wheel teathers. The driver was disapointed, but uninjured, and is sitting 13th on the grid.



(Jalopnik)

Hennessey Venom GT

So, it's an Exige... with a modified, 750hp LS9 straight out of the Hennessey ZR1... And people don't seem excited by it. I fail to understand this world.

Honestly, what's not to like here? It's not a totally original car, but for a company like Hennessey -famous for upping the lethality of Vipers everywhere- a car like this is a big step. It's a much more involved process, on par with the likes of the RUF CTR3, and the 9FF GT9R. And whether or not it has the pedigree of something like an Enzo it's a sub-2,700lb. car with 750bhp! Which means that it should run ring around the Ferrari. In this day and age of 3,500lb Porsches and 4,500lb Lamborghinis this may be the last chance to buy true light weight combined with high horsepower. It's also the perfect car for anyone -well, anyone with a lot of money- who wishes they'd made more than one Lotus GT1.

In any event, here are some shots of the car being tested in Britain. It's probably not exciting enough to change anyone's opinion about the car, but it's neat none the less.

GTOs And Califronias At Willow Springs And Mulholland

Axis Of Oversteer is a great blog, one I visit often and occasionally steal from. Last week they posted a couple great videos of Ferrari 250 GTOs and Californias (and a PF coupe) being run at varios locations in Southern California cir. '69-70. The envy with which these 8mm films are likely to fill you is only going to be amplified when the narrator, who owned one of the GTOs reveals that he was only 19 years old at the time!




Clearly, I have wasted my life....