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