Jason H. Harper | The Verge

Welcome to alphanumeric car hell

2016-08-30T11:00:09-04:00

Et tu, Hyundai?

Until recently, the Korean brand offered two upmarket cars, the Genesis and the Equus. The first name had biblical shades and the latter shared a title with a play where an adolescent likes to get naked and straddle horses. So while the connotations were a bit muddled, at least they were memorable.

Now Hyundai has spun Genesis into its own luxury brand, akin to what Toyota did with Lexus decades ago. And in so doing, it has cast off those memorable names in favor of an alphanumeric naming strategy. The Hyundai Genesis is reborn as the Genesis G80 and the Equus sheds its horsey homage to become the G90, which guarantees that I won’t remember the new names. I’ll just call the G90 the Model-Formerly-Known-as-Equus. And while the two models seemed well differentiated before, now the distinctions are hazy. The G90 apparently has 10 more units of something over the G80. Perhaps it is 10 percent better. Ten percent bigger? Ten grand more expensive? Welcome to Alphanumeric Hell.

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This is The Harper Spin, a weekly column from seasoned auto critic Jason H. Harper. He’s raced at Le Mans, crushed a car in a 50-ton tank, and now, he’s bringing his unique style to The Verge.

Here’s a quick quiz: who makes the QX70? Or how about the ILX? Or the K900 or the MKC? In what way is the GS 450h F similar to the GLA45?

Trick questions all. The correct answer to each is this: nobody gives a damn.

Somebody should point out to carmakers that we consumers are pretty busy. We’ve got to keep up with each new iPhone model and its latest operating system, the difference between a Charizard and a Charmander, and which DC universe flick has the lowest Tomatometer score.

So, Infiniti, you’ve got some hubris expecting us to learn your new and utterly complex Q/QX system. Half of consumers don’t even realize your brand isn’t spelled with a “y.”

Once upon a time, when only a few automakers used alphanumeric appellations, these names might have come across as sophisticated and tech-savvy. Sensical, even. As in so much of automotive history, this mostly began with the regimented style of Germans.

Look at the venerable Mercedes-Benz SL model. SL stood for “sport light” (or sport leicht in German), and the number indicated the size of the engine. The 190 SL from the 1950s had a 1.9-liter engine, while the 500 SL had a 5.0 liter engine. The name actually told you that it was a lightweight sports car with either a small or big engine. The modern SL550, however, has a 4.7-liter engine, not a 5.5-liter one, and it isn’t particularly light at some 4,000 pounds.

BMW’s naming system was also once quite transparent. The 3, 5, and 7 Series each stepped up in size, price and complexity, while the rest of the name indicated the size of the engine. A 325i was a 3 Series car with a fuel-injected, 2.5-liter engine. But now the company is one of the worst name offenders, breaking their own rules with mad abandon. Take the 4 Series Gran Coupe, whose model names states in two different ways that it is a two-door car. Nope. It has four. (BMW also wins the prize for longest names.)

Even so, a Bimmerophile is still likely to parse the difference between a 230i Coupe and the M240i xDrive, just because they’re passionate about the brand. I’m less sure that the average consumer is going to make the same time and thought investment for the struggling Lincoln, which abandoned real names like the Town Car, Zephyr, and Aviator for zingers such as the MKZ, MKX, and MKT. At least they’re bringing back the classic Continental nameplate. And the Navigator name is hanging on, too.

Yes, there is a long list of documented pitfalls when it comes to “real” names. Usually a name that has one meaning in its home language had an unfortunate connotation in another, often involving masturbation (Buick LaCrosse) or dung (Toyota MR2).

But better to evoke something. To take a shot at greatness or insert a dose of attitude. For every misfire like the LaPuta and Aspire, there was a Legend and an Integra; for every Pinto or Nova, we had a Hornet and a Marauder, a Barracuda and a Talon.

To the likes of Hyundai and its new Genesis luxury brand, looking for a sheen of refinement, may I point out brands like Aston Martin and Rolls-Royce? Aston isn’t afraid to have a little alliterative fun with models like the Vantage, Vulcan and Vanquish Volante. But it doesn’t come at the expense of sophistication. And one of Rolls-Royce’s latest models is the Wraith — total bad-assery. See also the Phantom, Dawn, and Ghost.

You tell me: which name will history — or you — remember?

What happens when Cadillac takes on BMW?

2016-08-09T10:24:39-04:00

It must be hard to kick ass, decade after decade. It puts a giant target on your back, after all — you’re the one everyone else is trying to knock down, year after year.

In the car world, Bayerische Motoren Werke AG has been that leader for a long time. BMW created the sports sedan segment with the M3, released an early luxury SUV with the X5, and is now focusing on the future with its “i” sub-brand. It’s even promised a self-driving car by 2021.

Which brings us to Cadillac, an American brand that was the BMW of its day — those days being the 1950s. If there was a brand emblematic of the rising American middle class, suburbia as swinging cool, it was Cadillac. But since the Rat Pack went away and shag rugs got a haircut, the brand has mostly served as a reminder of a bygone age of American manufacturing.

Cadillac’s modern goal is to ascend to BMW heights. Or perhaps even to topple the Bavarians. It is like a chastened Goliath who has come out of his cave, looking to knock the boastful David down a notch or two. So if reinvention has found brands as diverse as Pabst Blue Ribbon, Cadillac has also arisen anew. MSRPs have gone up. Corporate HQ has moved out of Detroit to very swank digs in downtown Manhattan, and the talk of the company is, smartly, as much lifestyle and aspiration as cold hard metal.

This is The Harper Spin, a weekly column from seasoned auto critic Jason H. Harper. He’s raced at Le Mans, crushed a car in a 50-ton tank, and now, he’s bringing his unique style to The Verge.

(Cadillac)

The good news is that the engineers have also been sweating the details of that cold hard metal. While the brand’s main mover, the Escalade, embodies backwards thinking (a huge and hulking SUV with lots of bling), sedans such as the CTS have improved every generation, hunting for the market share owned by the BMW 5 Series sedan and Lexus GS. Cadillac sales haven’t truly reflected the vast improvements, but one wonders if the time has come.

Because over the last few years, BMW has stumbled, too. It spread itself thin, looking to expand market share by introducing a ream of niche vehicles. There were models like the 5 Series Gran Turismo, launched in 2010, which was a five-door hatchback that weighed almost 5,000 pounds and was saddled with a bulbous butt. It is reviled.

And while everyone from Hyundai to Infiniti have relentlessly benchmarked the brand’s best products, Cadillac is the most likely marque to actually take advantage. A slew of new crossovers are in the works. (None of this is a knock on Bimmer. It’s hard to be the king.)

It’s hard to be the king

Not long ago, I drove four Cadillac sedans back to back, seeing just how far they’ve come to matching BMW. So, here’s the deal. The ATS competes with the BMW 3 Series. The CTS is larger, and has traditionally been positioned as a cheaper alternative to the 5 Series. The CT6 is Caddy’s new luxury model, straddling the line between a well-optioned 5 and the flagship 7 Series. In the name of spicing things up, I opted for the souped-up, performance-oriented versions of the ATS and CTS, the “V” models.

Lined up in a parking lot in north New Jersey, the Caddies made a nice showing. The designs are both distinctive and yet restrained. In the case of the ATS and CTS, the V versions are generally beefier than the regular cars, with additional side skirts and aerodynamic cladding. But they don’t scream for you to look at them. The grilles are fabulous, though the bodies are a bit blocky for my tastes. The CT6 is arguably too restrained, but it fits into the family tree nicely. It is recognizable as a new age Cadillac.

(Cadillac)

The ATS-V starts around $61,000 and is available as both a sedan and coupe. My tester, at $75,900, was a rear-wheel-drive sedan with a 3.6-liter twin-turbo V-6 and a six-speed manual. It competes directly with one of the most famous of all BMWs, the M3, which is now in its fifth generation.

The idea that a Cadillac could ever compete with a M3 would once have been heresy. But the current generation M3 (starting around $64,000) has lost its way. It is flush with 425 horsepower courtesy of a 3.0-liter turbo inline six engine, but it’s no longer the cogent performance machine it once was. If the M3 used to be the buttoned-up businessman with an inner demon, the current model is a bulging-eye madman who kicked over his boss’ desk and hasn’t shown up to work since. History is unlikely to look upon it with the reverence of older generations.

The ATS-V is a more linear machine. It has more power, at 464 hp and 445 pound-feet of torque, but it delivers it in a saner, more accessible way. The M3 has a tendency to kick out its ass end even when you didn’t ask it to, which might seem insouciant but can be plain scary. The ATS has to be coaxed into any type of slide. The ride is better, less punishing, and the magnetic shocks are a wonder found on a number of GM products. They allow the car to ride comfortably over big bumps even at speed. By contrast, the M3 is so stiff it seems brittle.

As for interior, there are many elements in the Cadillac to delight. Recaro performance seats are an option, at $2,300, as is the suede-like material coating the steering wheel and shifter for $300. But the Cue infotainment system isn’t nearly as good as BMW’s excellent iDrive, and the back seat is cramped, headroom is poor, and ingress to the rear is punitive.

If you’re looking for more space — and even more power — turn to the CTS-V. My tester started at $83,995 but came to $100,330 with options. It packs a wallop: 640 hp and 630 lb-ft of torque from a supercharged 6.2-liter V-8. Oddly — and unlike the M3 — the BMW M5 is the meeker, saner vehicle. The M5 has 560 hp and 500 lb-ft of torque from a 4.4-liter turbo V-8, but it retains a more luxurious and businesslike feel. You can get the M5 to unleash, and it drives wonderfully when you do. But it is generally tamped down, a performance model once in a while.

This generation CTS-V is a beast. It has the soul of a muscle car, but one that handles incredibly well. The problem with it is that it makes you want to go hell-bent all the time. It lunges and strains against its leash. The suspension is also giving, though not cushy, but it makes a lot less sense of a daily driver than the M5. Yet it easily wins the desirability award. Given the choice between the two current cars, I’d take the Caddy. Driving one makes me dream of owning one, though I’d fear for my driver’s license. I’m not going overboard when I say that I love this car.

(Cadillac)

And then there’s the luxury space, where the new CT6 is looking to make a mark. While it is longer than the 5, it isn’t a full-on luxury barge like the 7 or a Mercedes-Benz S-Class. It will also be available with a dizzying array of engine options, including a plug-in hybrid and a V-8. Right now you can get a 2.0-liter four cylinder, a 3.6-liter V-6, or a twin-turbo V-6. Pricing follows the same wide array, ranging from $54,000 to around $90,000.

Perhaps you can already see an issue. The same buyer who wants a car for $55K is probably not the same buyer willing to spend $88,460 — the price of the CT6 Platinum that I tested. It is hard to appeal to a great swathe of customers in the luxury world. While a 5 Series customer might look at the new Cadillac and see it as a viable alternative, one finds it hard to believe that a 7 Series owner is likely to switch.

This difficulty of playing in the 7’s world is even greater since the new-generation 7, priced from $81,500, is a superlative machine. It looks great, drives like a dream, and is stuffed with more technology than a T-800 Model 101 Terminator. Even the key comes with special gadgetry. BMW owners know that it is a superlative machine, too, and they don’t have to convince any of their friends of that fact. The same can’t be said of the CT6. In the luxury space, the Caddy is an unknown quantity.

My day of Cadillacs included a drive of the 2.0-liter CT6, priced at $66,310. That is not cheap, especially for a four cylinder, long the province of economy cars. But in some ways it’s the happier machine over the two available V-6s. With less weight in the nose, it carries momentum around corners and feels lighter on its feet. The front seats are magically thin, and the Bose stereo is fabulous. Win and win. But the lower price point means some materials aren’t as nice. Just cast your eyes up and look at the drab headliner, for instance.

The CT6 Platinum is the current top option. With every box ticked it comes in at around $90,000, roughly the base price of a BMW 740i xDrive. The Caddy is also all-wheel-drive, and it gets rear-wheel steering and those great magnetic shocks. GM is very bullish on tech lately, and the new sedan has night vision, automatic braking, all the safety alerts you can imagine, including being able to detect pedestrians in the road.

The 3.0-liter model looks more solid and mature than the cheaper 2.0, owing to a beefier grille and a more upmarket interior. The rear is especially welcoming: comfortable and with plenty of headroom, this is a car that is exceptionally nice to be driven around in. (This is particularly important in markets like China, where every luxury automaker would like to make a bigger dent.) But the CT6 with the most powerful engine simply doesn’t thrill to the road in the same way as a 5 or the 7. It’s… well, fine to drive. Which isn’t enough to change the marketplace tide.

It shows that, given time to refine models like the CTS, Cadillac is capable of very great things. The company took the learnings of the CTS, scaled down the body size, and produced the ATS and the ATS-V — and the latter is a car that really is better than the current BMW M3. Its relationship with luxury, though, is still in flux. The CT6 will continue to be refined. I’ll be especially curious to see how niche versions like the plug-in hybrid will be received. And, eventually, we’ll surely be given a true flagship, something as big and grandiose as the Caddies of old. And you can be sure that all the lessons of the “lesser” models will be incorporated.

For all that, BMW (and the other stalwart German brands) will take notice. Hopefully, so will customers.

BMW’s Spyder concept is how you’ll drive in the future

What’s so special about a Ferrari, anyway?

2016-08-02T10:29:36-04:00

The Ferrari 488. | Ferrari

This is The Harper Spin, a weekly column from seasoned auto critic Jason H. Harper. He’s raced at Le Mans, crushed a car in a 50-ton tank, and now, he’s bringing his unique style to The Verge.

Ferrari is one of the world’s most recognized brands. Not just car brands — brands, period. Which is amazing when you consider that production has always been extremely limited. Even today, only some 7,000 cars are produced annually. Toyota, by contrast, has sold more than 40 million Corollas worldwide.

But why Ferrari? As the car world shifts toward automation and electrification, it’s fair to wonder about the allure of the Italian marque. Is it just rich guys showing off, or something more?

The extremely glib answer to a decidedly one-percenter question is this: to really understand, you’ve got to drive one. But that’s difficult to actually manage, unless you sign up for a cheesy drive “experience” in Las Vegas, or have a Silicon Valley buddy known for his largess.

Compare it to an indifferent wine drinker who’s handed a glass of vintage Montrachet

But if you did get behind the wheel, the Ferrari allure would make more sense. Compare it to an indifferent wine drinker who’s handed a glass of vintage Montrachet. It’s not that you’d suddenly now turn up your nose at Two Buck Chuck, but you might regale your fellow tipplers about that time you killed a $4,000 bottle of Romanée-Conti. Now that was a gas.

Which brings me to the latest Ferrari mid-engine supercar, the 488 Spider, which is being delivered to lucky owners around the world about now. It runs $275,000 and up. The 488 Spider is a convertible and it’s fast and it’s sexy and I could explain how it’s different than the previous car — actually I will do a bit of that — but it won’t really won’t mean a damn thing to you unless you’ve been in a Ferrari before.

How to describe what makes a Ferrari special? There is no doubt that they are playthings, and owners show them off. But neither of those points get at the brand’s essence, that moment the Ferrari-ness of the actual thing cleaves away your own preconceptions.

A Ferrari Challenge Stradale, based on the 360.

My first blush with a real Ferrari came more than 15 years ago, in a 360 Modena, one of the direct antecedents of the 488. Like the 488, the V-8 engine sat in the middle of the car, behind the driver. It was painted, of course, a classic Ferrari red. I was attending a press event and a colleague and I shared the car, driving the back roads near Connecticut’s Lime Rock racetrack. (Ferrari didn’t actually let us out on the track that day. Probably wise.) I got the first turn at the wheel, and I started the car and the cabin vibrated with a sound that was high and animalistic, a ferocious creature scrabbling in the engine bay behind us, anxious to break free.

Setting off, I gently triggered the behind-the-wheel paddle shifters, the first time I had experienced the F1 transmission technology.

I promised myself that I was going to be totally cool about this

I promised myself that I was going to be totally cool about this. I was in my 20s and I lived in New York City and I’d traveled around the world and there wasn’t much left in the universe that was gonna impress me. I knew it all, man. But let’s see what this thing was about. I stomped on the gas and — holy-gobsmack! Guuumhhhh, my body stuffed into the seat, my bone marrow cooked, and soft viscera muddled into jelly. This was unlike any car I had ever driven. There was no gathering of speed as in, say, my Honda Civic Si, which I once considered quite quick. The 360 was perception-altering, the Ayahuasca of autos. This was God’s rolled-up newspaper, swatting the car through time and space.

I reluctantly turned the wheel over to my colleague Josh, and I tried to relay my feelings to him. Yes, he’d been sitting next to me, his body undergoing the same flash-bang speed, but I suspected that the experience was far different, as if a universe separated the two leather seats. Riding in a Ferrari is not the same as driving a Ferrari.

And it was true. He set off and his eyes shone and his face became oddly still, as if he’d gone to another place. It was plenty of fun in the right-hand seat, but I didn’t experience the same joy-bomb of exhilaration as when I was in control. Maybe that’s why Josh didn’t seem to hear me when I told him to slow down. There was a police car lying in wait amid a copse of trees. He got a ticket, a sizable one, but he didn’t even seem to mind. The Ferrari was worth it.

The Ferrari F430.

In 2004, the 360 was replaced by the F430 Berlinetta. It was better looking, faster, and more technologically advanced. I eventually drove all of the variants, including the convertible and the 430 Scuderia. Each was a delight, a reinvigoration of the senses. But like the first-ever hit of E, my first time in a Ferrari was the most explosive. It’s not that I was chasing the high, but I now had a definitive reference point. I knew what to expect. The sound of the naturally aspirated engine as it was pushed to 9,000 rpms, the automotive equivalent of brain hypoxia, survived by only the rarest of cars. The ease which the car sizzled through air and flowed over asphalt, speed as quick as thought.

After the Scuderia, I couldn’t imagine the brand could possibly outdo itself. Then came the 458 Italia. Unbelievably it really was quicker. Too quick, even. How would an untrained driver handle a car this fast? But the engine overrun, the burble of backfire as an engine burns off excess gasoline, was suddenly gone. Ferrari was using all of its available energy more wisely, but at a cost of some of the audible loveliness.

I prefer the 458 over the 488 in most ways

And so comes the 488 GTB and Spider models, replacing the 458. And with it comes the biggest change since Ferrari completely abandoned the manual transmission.

Ferrari has traded the naturally breathing V-8 for one that is aided by a turbocharger. The change comes for two reasons: it produces less carbon dioxide, and it allows for even more power out of the V-8 without having to make it physically bigger.

Is the new 661-horsepower motor as special as the outgoing? It isn’t. Sorry, I wish it were. It no longer revs to such highs, and the sound isn’t as good. It is less Ferrari.

Is it still amazing? It is. There is actually more get-go at any moment that even before, with 560 pound-feet of torque available at a low 3,000 rpm. Sixty mph arrives in less than three seconds, which is insanity, and 125 mph will appear on the digital readout about five seconds later. It’s a new kind of power for a Ferrari, and an intoxicating one. But the delirious sound of a fighter plane under full propulsion is gone. I prefer the 458 over the 488 in most ways.

The 458.

But, perhaps, this is the more relevant question: if the 488 was your first experience in a Ferrari, would it snap you into a different universe? Does it continue to function like automotive Ayahuasca?

Yes to both. Totally and completely. The 488 mushes marrow and cooks the brain, even more completely than the 360 Modena (which is now considered slow). It is still totally and thoroughly Ferrari, if a different kind.

But, interestingly, the 488 has managed to sever my expectations, those definitive reference points which began with the 360 and evolved to the 458 Speciale (probably my favorite Ferrari ever). If this is a very different Ferrari — and it is — it means that the next model after the 488 will continue to evolve as well. The company will get ever better at these new breed of engines, and I can’t even guess what the next generation might bring.

And for that, I’m excited all over again. The follow-up (the 495, maybe?) will be new and exciting and a surprise. Which is exactly what makes Ferrari so special.

Pickup trucks don’t suck anymore

2016-07-26T10:34:52-04:00

This is The Harper Spin, a weekly column from seasoned auto critic Jason H. Harper. He’s raced at Le Mans, crushed a car in a 50-ton tank, and now, he’s bringing his unique style to The Verge.

You do not care about pickup trucks.

A pickup is a petrol-powered wheelbarrow; surely one of the lower rungs on the automotive hierarchy. Pickups? Driven and obsessed over by people who are decidedly not you. Right?

Except, well, there was that time that you needed to move your queen mattress to the new apartment, and you called up that guy who used to date your cousin, and he showed up in his lifted Ford F-150 with the Hella lights on the roof and he hoisted that mattress into the bed like it was nothing. You stepped onto the running boards and hauled yourself into the high-up cabin and you rode over to your new pad while looking down at the people in their Lilliputian cars and you thought: this thing is manly. And it’s nice to be able to haul stuff. But then you realized that guys like your cousin’s ex are only summoned when someone needs their stuff hauled around, and that sucks.

Besides, you do not care about pickup trucks.

Now, here comes the brand-new Ridgeline, which looks more like a traditional truck

But there was also that time that Honda released a pickup truck, in 2005, and you thought that was kind of interesting. It was called the Ridgeline. The idea of a truck from Honda, known for easy-driving cars full of innovative conveniences, was appealing. But then you saw the thing. You may not be a pickup person, but even to your eyes it looked all wrong, what with the soft angles and weird angled walls alongside the bed. It didn’t impress pickup people, and it didn’t sell all that well.

Now, here comes the brand-new Ridgeline, which looks more like a traditional truck, if a softer and gentler one. The Honda is midsized, which is better suited to city traffic and fits into a garage. The Ridgeline joins the updated Toyota Tacoma and new entrants from Chevrolet and GMC. In the truck world, midsize is the new black.

That’s because trucks have been a’changin’, even the biggest, rootin’-tootin’ trucks like the Ford F-150. They ride comfortably these days, have digital screens, heated seats, and heaps of safety features. A new Chevy Silverado travels around as nicely as a Mercedes E-Class of old. In fact, if you spent some time in one, you just might fall a little bit in love.

Another surprise: just how much you can spend on a truck. The Honda starts at $30,000 and works up to the $43,000 Black Edition. A Ram 1500 Limited 4X4 is around $56,000. Not much blue collar in that.

(Honda)

But the new Ridgeline, now looking 400 percent less dorky, is still an outlier. It is built on an unibody frame, the same as a car, rather than the standard body-on-frame used in pickups. A body-on-frame is an internal ladder system, sturdier than a unibody design, and ideal for off-roading and towing. But unibodies are far superior in terms of comfort and handling.

The Ridgeline is offered in all-wheel-drive and front-wheel-drive flavors. Those too are better suited to asphalt than burly trails. Trucks are normally four-wheel or rear-wheel drive. (Consumer Reports has a good primer on the differences between AWD and 4WD, if you’re interested.)

So, guess what? If you took a $43,000 Black Edition Ridgeline out for a ride, you’d find it drives like a well-mannered crossover. It shares chassis parts with the Pilot, though they are beefed up. It hustles around town, handles curves gracefully, and the seats are Honda comfortable. It’s easy to forget that you’re even driving a truck.

The AWD drive has a lot to do with that, but so does stuff you’d never, ever expect to find in a truck. Like a legitimate torque vectoring system which overdrives an outside wheel to help the truck handle corners. Many vectoring systems, even those found on hardcore sports cars, rely on systems which brake the inside wheel instead. This is the same kind of stuff that’s found on Acura’s NSX supercar. Go figure.

It hustles around town, handles curves gracefully, and the seats are Honda comfortable

Other things you wouldn’t have found on a truck from a decade ago: Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. A 400-watt AC power outlet. A navigation system with real-time traffic, and safety systems that warn you of an impending front collision and help you stay in your lane. Adaptive cruise control, which maintains your distance from the vehicle ahead of you in traffic.

The interior isn’t fancy — and the lack of an actual knob to turn the stereo volume up or down is inexplicable — but the inside will fit five adults, a testament to Japanese automakers’ uncanny talents for maximizing interior space.

If all those things cause the Ridgeline to be rather car-like, there are disadvantages. The bed is clever — it’s actually got a lockable compartment inside — but isn’t all that big. An ambitious trip to Home Depot may leave you in need of a second trip. And if you ever hauled something like a boat, it would need to be a small motorboat and not a yacht. The towing limit is 5,000 pounds.

If the Ridgeline entices you, Mr. or Ms. Non-Truck, you might also go to a Chevy or GMC dealership and try out a diesel Colorado and Canyon. (They’re basically the exact same truck with different nameplates.) They too are stuffed with new tech, including CarPlay and a seat that buzzes when you cross over a lane divider without signaling.

(GMC)

But they also drive incredibly well. Whereas the Ridgeline’s 3.5-liter V-6 has 262 pound-feet of torque, the Canyon’s 2.8-liter diesel gets 369 lb-ft, which grunts up hills with bull-like aplomb. Better, though, is the amount of innovation that GM has applied to quiet both the diesel’s natural vibrations and noise, making it even better to drive than the regular gas engines. The diesel Canyon and Colorado are great trucks. If you did care about these things, you’d find these two models have a lot more credibility in the truck community.

We wager that there’s a good chance that once you’ve driven something like the Ridgeline or the Canyon, you just may come away a little bit smitten. You may find yourself thinking of the stuff you’d like to move if you had one. And then you realize you might just want one.

But, a warning: if you do succumb, never tell your friends. Because those people who don’t yet care about trucks have to move stuff, too. And next time, they’ll call you.

To hell with horsepower

2016-07-20T11:16:34-04:00

This is The Harper Spin, a weekly column from seasoned auto critic Jason H. Harper. He’s raced at Le Mans, crushed a car in a 50-ton tank, and now, he’s bringing his unique style to The Verge.

The horsepower wars are killing sports cars.

There is an unwritten mandate that every time a new car model arrives, it has to have more horsepower and torque than its predecessor. It should also ideally have a spec sheet that makes its direct competitor look wimpy. If the Mustang Shelby GT350R has 526 hp, then expect the new Camaro ZL1 to have even more. (It does, at 640.)

Frankly, it’s exhausting.

And mostly pointless. Because you know what’s really, really hard to use on a normal road? Six hundred and forty horsepower. The upcoming Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport (460 hp) will touch 100 miles per hour in third gear. (I know, I’ve done it.) Awesome as an idea, but less ideal on a real road, where you must preserve both public safety and your driver’s license.

And, ultimately, that makes the cars less fun. You’re only using a small fraction of a car’s capability most of the time — or really, ever — unless you’re lucky enough to get it on a racetrack. We’re talking about Mustangs and Camaros and BMWs, not supercars. Plunge into a modern sports car’s full power, and you could go to jail. The entire point of a sports car is to be entertained, and going to jail is not entertaining.

(Bugatti)

Which, in my opinion, means that many carmakers have lost sight of the point, taking on the myopic view that a sports car is defined by its power. I’ve driven the Bugatti Veyron several times, and let’s just say its 1,001 hp was plenty sufficient. I’m not sure the follow-up, the Chiron, is going to be that much bigger of a kick in the pants with 1,500 hp.

Which is not to say that power isn’t important. (We’re also referring to torque, which is measured in units of pound-feet, and is the initial force that gets you moving quickly from a full stop.)

I often have to merge onto a section of Pennsylvania’s I-80 freeway with the world’s shortest on-ramp. It feeds directly onto a long straightaway where 18-wheelers and commuters barrel through at high velocity. Enter the fray in an underpowered 1960s VW Microbus at your own great peril. Nobody is going to pull over to let you in, and it takes minutes for a Microbus to reach 60 mph.

But these days, even an eco-conscious Ford Edge crossover makes 245 hp and 275 pound-feet of torque from its sprightly turbo EcoBoost four cylinder — ample oomph to get up to speed on that freeway ramp. And the up-rated 2.7-liter twin-turbo V-6 gets 315 hp and 350 lb-ft, which is more than many older sports cars. (A 1979 Corvette with a fat 5.7-liter V-8 was good for a pitiable 195 hp.)

The issue, oddly, is technology

Five hundred horsepower used to be the Rubicon which few automakers dared to cross. The 2003 Dodge Viper made exactly 500 hp, and people thought that was absolutely crazy balls. But now that number is old hat. There’s a Range Rover with 510, the BMW X5 M SUV with 567, and a Cadillac CTS-V sedan with 640. Dodge eradicated any last bit of sanity when it released the 707-hp Challenger Hellcat.

The issue, oddly, is technology. As cars have gotten heavier because of safety equipment and infotainment systems and massaging seats, automakers have simply made up for those added pounds by adding power. Huge strides in gas engines — namely turbocharging — have allowed the engine displacement to drop while power increases.

The good news is that turbos are usually more efficient than naturally-breathing engines. That power and efficiency is the reason why automakers from Porsche to Ferrari are switching to them. The downside is they sound less interesting, rev much lower, and are generally less exciting. I’d prefer a base 911 with an old-school, naturally aspirated flat six engine good for 300 hp over the new 370-hp turbo power plant, extra power be damned.

(Jessica Walker)

But the thing is, drive any base 911 made in the last decade on a public road, and it’s just too fast. It’s effortless to zing down even a tricky and winding road at 100 mph. You want to get your blood pumping, but the cars are so good at speed, you still feel like you’re just cruising along.

I’ve also driven a 1974 Carrera, with a 2.7-liter, air-cooled flat six, with maybe 150 hp. Same type of winding road, and I rarely got above 60. And I felt like I was flying. It was light and low to the ground, and had no electronic aids. It was thrilling.

You can get the same sensation in a modern Mazda Miata MX-5 (155 hp). The MX-5 is focused on supreme handling and light weight. It comes in at around 2,300-plus pounds, so it doesn’t need that much power to sling it down the road. It is old-school.

Added pounds make any car less fun

Which isn’t to say that technology is the enemy — or that you have to go buy yourself an old 911 that reeks of petrol. One of the most entertaining back-road cars I’ve driven in years is BMW’s super-advanced i8 coupe. It is a plug-in hybrid uses both a small 3-cylinder gas engine and an electric engine. It can function in all-electric mode. At full tilt, both engines working together produce a modest 357 hp. It’s a very modern car, but it really isn’t all that fast by modern sports car standards. What’s important is that you can actually use all of its power on a regular road. Certainly it will go fast enough to get you a speeding ticket, but you’re unlikely to get to go-to-jail speeds without really working at it.

And when it comes to incredible zero-to-60 speeds, one only has to look to Ludicrous Mode in the Tesla Model S P90D. We all know by now that EVs can be very fast off the line, owing to the fact that an electric motor produces full torque on demand. But the Tesla changes the power paradigm. The bigger battery pack allows you to drive longer distances in a single charge — or get a 2.8-second run to 60 mph. (Which, by the way, you’ll only get to do a few times before using up your charge.) But that is different than the Dodge Hellcat, which has to lug around its 6.2-liter V-8 even when it’s idling around town. The Tesla’s approach to performance delivers mad performance with fewer downsides.

I’d like to see sports car makers turn their attentions from the constant adding of power to the constant deletion of weight. Added pounds make any car less fun, as heavier cars don’t go around tight corners nearly as well.

But making cars lighter is far more complicated and expensive than simply shoving in a turbocharger, so automakers have to truly commit to a new vision. Surprisingly, it is companies like Lamborghini which are taking up the call. The company is currently working on a new type of carbon-fiber technology using forged composites at its bespoke laboratory in Seattle. The new stamping process will allow many more parts of the car to be made in the tough-but-lightweight material.

Still, the latest top-of-the-line Lambo is the Aventador SV with 740 horses. I think we could have just as much fun with one that only makes 500.

What it’s like to drive Lamborghini’s most beautiful car

2016-07-12T09:52:48-04:00

Lucca is an ancient walled city in Tuscany that has all the charms of Florence, but it is smaller, even more navigable by foot, and isn’t as overrun by tourists. On this day in early summer, the Sun is sparkling on the cobblestones and the locals are sidestepping the gawping visitors.

And then comes the noise.

A racket of deep, burring V-12 engines causes the locals to pause mid-stride. They know something is about to happen. And then the great old wall is breached. First a yellow nose pokes out of the tunnel entrance leading to the inside of the city. A strange, beautiful car slides through. And then another and another; a parade of 20 machines painted in the bombastic colors of the late-1960s: shag-carpet oranges, neon greens, and tangerine yellows. Two Italian policemen on tall motorcycles sidle alongside the procession, stopping foot and car traffic alike. It is as if royalty is being ushered into the Italian citadel.

An American family stops and stares. The boy asks, “What are those cars, dad?” The father shakes his head, but snaps cell-phone photos like everyone else.

This is The Harper Spin, a weekly column from seasoned auto critic Jason H. Harper. He’s raced at Le Mans, crushed a car in a 50-ton tank, and now, he’s bringing his unique style to The Verge.

No surprise that few of the Americans would recognize the Lamborghini Miura. And little surprise that many of the Italians do. The Miura is the most beautiful Lamborghini ever made, and arguably one of the most elegant cars ever produced in Italy. When it comes to Italian exotics with great historical design significance, the Miura rests alongside classics like the Maserati Birdcage Tipo 61, the Ferrari Testa Rossa, and the Dino.

This year marks the Miura’s 50th anniversary. The model was built from 1966 to 1973, with more than 750 produced. To celebrate, Lamborghini invited Miura owners worldwide to ship their cars and drive in a procession through Italy.

And I’m actually driving one of them. A yellow P400SV model, with black leather seats and a gated five-speed manual. The V-12 engine directly behind my head is a complex arrangement of 12 pistons, 24 valves, and four Weber carburetors, a gnashing symphony that is both violent and fragile. The powertrain isn’t suited to this slow stop-and-go crawl, and the steadily building heat from the transverse-mounted unit seeps through the firewall and into the cabin. Still, the windows are down and I’m grinning idiotically at all of the onlookers. People of Italy! Look at me! I’m in a Miura. This is absolutely and totally perfect.

Today, Lamborghini is famous for its outré mid-engine sports cars. But the company’s progenitor, Ferruccio Lamborghini, first created his car company to stand in contrast to Enzo Ferrari’s enterprise. Whereas Ferrari, who built his factory first in the same region of Italy, was only interested in racecars, Ferruccio was instead intent on fast but comfortable grand touring cars. The first car from Automobili Ferruccio Lamborghini SpA was the 350GT, a coupe with a front engine that was suited for cross-country trips.

But the workers in the factory, including the engineer Gian Paolo Dallara and test driver Bob Wallace, had other ideas and they designed a mid-engine chassis in secret. The idea was eventually shown to Ferruccio, who changed his mind. A body was commissioned to the design company of Bertone in Turin, and the project was given to the famed car designer, Marcello Gandini.

The result is the Miura.

Walk around one in the flesh and you are struck by the perfect proportions. Pedestrian safety regulations would no longer permit the long and low sloping hood that terminates in a sharp brow. The rear of the roof sweeps down in a single sexy swoop. The haunches are copious, but not stupidly so. The hands that designed this car were restrained — not a hallmark of later Lamborghinis. Three iterations were produced: the initial P400, the P400S, and the P400SV. Small details on the interior and exterior were changed and power increased, but the spirit remained the same.

When it comes to the collectors’ market, Lamborghini lags far behind the juggernaut that is Ferrari. A Ferrari 250 GTO was sold several years ago for $38.1 million. Lambo has never approached anything like those numbers. So the 50th anniversary is a good opportunity for Lamborghini to help prop up its vintage models. Prices of the Miura have steadily climbed, and some now sell in the low millions.

Buyers of expensive vintage cars are very much a community, and to commemorate the Miura milestone, the company invited Miura owners to take a 500 kilometer rally around Italy. The event began in the factory at Sant’Agata Bolognese and moved through Bologna and Parma. I was invited to drive an early 1970s model — owned by Lamborghini itself and usually in a museum — from the seaside town Viareggio to Lucca and then onto Florence, where the rally officially ended.

As for actually driving the car, I wasn’t sure what to expect. And so the first time I sit in the cabin, one of the owners tells me, “You’ve got to drive with your legs splayed open, in the most immodest pose you can imagine.” He’s a British gent, and he’s owned his Miura for more than 20 years. I quickly see he’s correct. The seat is wide and canted back, and the leather-coated, three-spoke steering wheel basically sits in your lap. So there’s really one option: splay your legs wide and lounge out, looking like one of those “don’t be one of these guys” posters on the NYC subway, and you’ve got it exactly right.

I’m also given a note of caution. Because of an original mechanical oddity — namely that the four carburetors are placed directly over the spark plugs and ignition wires — the Miura has a worrisome tendency to catch fire. This has been an issue since their inception, and you can find a burning Miura video on YouTube. In fact, there’s already been a fire incident on this trip. “Try not to turn the car off and then back on when it’s already hot,” counsels an owner. “That’s when the fires start.” I nod. I really and truly don’t want to catch the car on fire.

And a quick side note on the men and women who are gathered for the rally. Yes, they are wealthy, but put away snide Lamborghini comments. One stately couple, now in their later years, have owned their Miura since they bought it new in the 1960s. They can fix anything that goes wrong with it themselves. Another has lovingly restored his car and turned it into a facsimile of a rare racecar version. The overall ambience is genial, welcoming and very generous of spirit, courtesy of a largely self-made group who have gathered because of a common passion.

The steering is heavy. The clutch is stout. Initially I look down each time I shift, making sure I snick the gear into the right gated slot. And if you should stop on a hill, and it’s a tough trick to get a Miura rolling forward again without slipping back or stalling in the process.

This is indeed a 50-year-old car. It probably wasn’t considered all that user friendly back in the day. But only a few minutes out of Viareggio, our caravan is bombing down a curving road in wooded foothills, and the car feels totally alive. There is no doubt that it is a mechanical, breathing thing. I only have to look directly behind me to actually see the engine, and the V-12 tremors and belches every time my foot falls on the gas pedal. The car turns far better than I would have expected, and while the acceleration isn’t great by today’s standards, it somehow feels faster.

And if there’s something magical about driving an Italian supercar in Italy, that sensation trebles when you’re in a car that was built by Italian craftsmen decades upon decades ago. It is a wonder to look ahead and behind and see the road sprinkled with the brightly hued Miuras. One was owned by Frank Sinatra. (It’s got a shag carpet interior.) Another by Rod Stewart. These cars are not only historical, they are history. Ferruccio himself died in 1993, and though a few of the men behind the Miura are still alive, many others are not. But their creations live on, and that is phenomenal.

So I want to make sure I don’t kill it with fire. The car drives fabulously for some 50 miles or so, but we’re passing through small villages swelled with Saturday traffic, and all the frequent stops are putting a strain on it. The column of cars slows suddenly and I brake hard — running into another owner would be a very expensive mistake for all involved — and the car stutters… and then stalls. And I quickly recall the advice: don’t restart the hot car if you can help it. That’s when the fires start.

I crank the engine, hold my breath, and the engine comes back to life. But from that point on, the car wants to stall each time I brake. So I use a technique called heel-to-toe in which you both use your right foot to both brake and goose the gas at the same time. It’s a lot of work and concentration, and by the time we reach our lunch stop (at a fabulous villa, naturally), I’ve sweated through my shirt.

Lamborghini has brought along mechanics, and they twiddle with the cars during the lunch. A few other owners ask for the engineers to take a look at their cars, and I notice that a good number have sweated through their clothes as well. And it makes me think: these are the kinds of owners that the Miura and its legacy actually deserves. Ones who actually go out into the countryside and drive the damn things. Men and women who don’t just put it into a private garage and let it molder away, possessed but unloved.

The Miura is one of the most beautiful cars ever made. It deserves to be heard and seen and enjoyed by others. Like a masterful painting in the dark, a great aria unsung and a gorgeously designed building unused, a car like the Miura is wasted if it’s not driven.

May we be so lucky to do it again another 50 years from now.

What kind of dream car can you get for $50,000?

2016-07-05T09:05:35-04:00

This is The Harper Spin, a weekly column from seasoned auto critic Jason H. Harper. He’s raced at Le Mans, crushed a car in a 50-ton tank, and now, he’s bringing his unique style to The Verge.

For a long time, there’s been a bit of common wisdom among car folk: you could buy the BMW 3 Series of your dreams for $50,000. And the Porsche 911 of your dreams for $100,000.

Those days are gone.

As cars become more technologically advanced, they also become more expensive. This isn’t such a surprise, of course. The surprise is that in this new era, there’s a flipside: you can still get yourself a slew of extremely decent automobiles for less than $25,000, and a few bargains below $20,000. And those options are significantly better than their counterparts of yore.

But there’s been a winnowing of the in-betweeners. The luxury and sports cars of our semi-realistic fantasies are less accessible than ever before. And that puts a kink in the old-time game of, “What would you buy for $50,000? How about $100,000?”

As cars become more technologically advanced, they also become more expensive

Those two dollar figures are easy to understand. They are certainly high enough to be aspirational. Fifty thou, to my mind, should net you a nice sports coupe or a snazzy SUV / crossover, and $100,000 should be enough to go bang-out crazy. But I recently drove a midsize GMC pickup with a sticker of $44,000 and a ho-hum, four-banger Cadillac for $69,000. It makes one wonder, are the $50,000 and $100,000 aspirational figures defunct?

Let’s just agree that any car over, say, $30,000 falls into the “want” and not the “need” category. Despite the Takata airbag debacle and the mess of the recent Jeep gearshift recall, the overwhelming majority of new cars are safer and better-made than ever before.

If you are looking for basic here-to-there transport for yourself, Chevrolet’s 2016 Spark starts at $13,535 for a manual, and gets ten airbags and a backup camera. It is a world better than Chevy’s old eco-boxes. And if you need to get a family around, the Kia Sorento fits up to seven with a base of $26,700. The equipment in these cars would have rivaled the top-flight Mercedes-Benz of not that long ago.

But let’s transition to the “want” category. I recently did drive a $52,695 BMW of my dreams. But it was a M2 model, not a 3 Series. The M2 is the sportier version of the 2 Series, the smallest car that BMW offers in the US.

The M2 checks all of my own sports-car desires, but it wouldn’t pass the desirability test of, say, my wife, who would want more rear-seat space and less plastic on the interior. Nor would it please my six-foot-three dad, who would need more space all over. The regular 3 Series, which has grown in size and complexity over the years, would barely cut it.

The 3 starts at $33,150. But that is the 320i sedan with the smallest engine (a 2.0-liter turbo four cylinder), and you get two choices of standard colors: non-metallic jet black or alpine white. The metallic (read: prettier) colors all cost you an extra $550.

Let’s just say that the 320i is not the dream 3 Series. No, that’s probably the 340i with a 3.0-liter turbo six-cylinder, starting at $46,795, or the superhero M3. The M3, once a relative bargain, now starts at $63,500, without any extras added. So that ship sails way past the $50K mark.

So, let’s build us a 340i online, shall we?

In for a penny, in for a pound

Well, I want the very trick, $550 “Estoril” metallic blue, but that automatically triggers the addition of the $2,600 M Sport package. (Why? Well, Estoril is named after a race track in Portugal. Otherwise it’s… unclear. But, okay, sure.) Now let’s talk interior. My dream Bimmer gets leather, not some weird vinyl called “SensaTec.” My desire is Coral Red Dakota — who comes up with these names? — with black stitching. That will be $1,450.

We are now at $51,395.

Next come the packages. Forget the cold weather package, I’ll simply turn on the regular heaters on frigid days and let my ass take care of itself. (Heated steering wheel and heated front and rear seats runs $800.)

Adaptive LED lights are a smart safety consideration, but cost an extra $800. I can’t help but tick the box for the $900, 19-inch light alloy wheels with better performance tires. (I would suggest squirreling away some money for the bent rims that will surely occur because of potholes, a common BMW affliction.) But the better tires also automatically dictate the addition of the “track package,” an additional $1,700.

I’m sweating now.

To hell with the driver assistant package for $900 except that, look at the nerve on these folks, you need it for the rear-view camera — the same one that comes standard on the Chevy Spark. I really want BMW’s heads-up display and the nav system and so the technology package gets ticked too.

In for a penny, in for a pound. So after a few “performance options,” my (mostly) dream 3 Series comes to a tidy $58,450.

Yowza.

But maybe my stock market has done really well this year. Or an uncle I never knew leaves me some cash. Perhaps I could stretch to the $100,000 mark. Which, in my analysis, means a Porsche.

(Porsche)

In reality, looking over the Porsche pricing list for 2016 and 2017 model years, a quick scan proves one thing: I can’t afford one. I’d dearly like a 718 Cayman or a Boxster, but really I’d probably hold out for a 911. (The cheapest Porsche on the list is a base Macan crossover at $47,500. The 2017 911 Turbo S Cabriolet runs north of $200,000.)

Let’s go for the 911. The base model, including delivery, is $90,450. It gets 370 horsepower. Not bad! But for that low, low price, we are offered four standard exterior colors, 19-inch Carrera wheels, partial leather, a manual transmission, and very little in the way of extra conveniences.

Not bad, but not dreamlike.

What I really want is the 420-hp, rear-wheel-drive “S” model, which starts at $103,400, already blowing my ceiling. But a dream is a dream. Trying to remain relatively modest, I’ll choose the bright orange color I love, the dear but needed sport package ($6,290), and the cool LED lights and 20-inch sport wheels — but retaining the manual transmission at no cost! And so my (mostly) dream 911 comes to a neat $125,475.

Let’s play a whole new game. What car would you buy for $75,000? How about $125,000?

BMW M2: a perfect sports car for $52,000

The best finish line on the planet

2016-06-21T10:23:10-04:00

This is The Harper Spin, a weekly column from seasoned auto critic Jason H. Harper. He’s raced at Le Mans, crushed a car in a 50-ton tank, and now, he’s bringing his unique style to The Verge.

Never underestimate humanity’s drive to pursue idiotic endeavors. Like that first guy who thought that the best way down a snow-covered mountain was to strap sticks to his feet. Or the chap who wondered how many buses he could jump over on his motorcycle.

Then there are the mountain climbers, the special subset of humanity who see something very, very high and simply must ascend to that place — avalanches, altitude sickness, and deadly falls be damned.

I’m on the heels of exactly one such individual. Jeff Zwart is an irrepressible competitor who loves to conquer heights as quickly as he possibly can. I’m huffing and puffing directly behind him, my brain slowly starving for oxygen as I veer toward the edge of a cliff. I try (and fail) not to look over the abyss. This is asinine, but of course I’m loving it. Turns out I’m just as bad as any of the rest of them.

Zwart’s mountain of choice is Pikes Peak, a 14,115-foot crest outside of Colorado Springs. Rather than ascend by foot, Zwart prefers a Porsche racecar. Once a year, he and his fellow madmen get their chance, taking part in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, a historic race in which they charge into the clouds using any wheeled conveyance they can think of.

(Porsche)

This insanity has been going on since 1916. Ignoring a few gap years owing to the World Wars, this year’s race on June 26th will be the 100th anniversary. Other than Indianapolis 500, the Pikes Peak hill climb has been going on longer than any other motorsport race in America.

I’m not insane enough to actually race. Well, I might be that insane, but nobody has ever offered me a chance. But Porsche recently got the mountain closed for a scant 30 minutes in early June, and offered a few journalists a chance to drive up, at full speed, in the brand’s new Macan GTS crossover.

Other than the annual race week, getting to drive up unfettered is a rarity. Officials are loathe to close down the mountain, relying on toll-road fees of the nearly 5.9 million tourists who drive up, slowly, each summer. (You haven’t experienced hell until you’ve followed up an RV to the top of Pikes Peak.)

I’m following his line, trusting that he won’t lead me off a cliff

Zwart, 61, is our leader. He directs car commercials for a living, but in his off time he races. He’s run Pikes Peak 16 times, winning his class eight of them. Right now, I’m about three feet off Zwart’s rear end, chasing after the big rear wing on his older-model 911 GT2 sports car. A huge drop is just off to my left, notably lacking a guard rail, but I’ve got tunnel vision. I’m following his line, trusting that he won’t lead me off a cliff.

The Macan, Porsche’s smallest SUV / crossover, wouldn’t be my first choice. The GTS model, however, is brand-new. Every major model line, from the 911 to the Cayenne, has a GTS variant that’s priced and powered above the “S” models, but less expensive and potent that the Turbos. Porsche often positions them as the models geared toward customers who put performance first.

The Macan GTS starts at around $63,000, and gets 360 horsepower and 369 pound-feet of torque from the 3.0-liter twin-turbo V-6. Crucially, the all-wheel-drive system is tuned to act more like a rear-wheel-drive vehicle than other Macans. It’s also got a trick air suspension system, a lowered ride height, and better brakes. It’s more of an almost-sports car than any other crossover I’ve ever driven. (That’s a compliment.)

Amazingly, it’s doing a very good job of keeping up with Zwart and his 911. There are five other Macans behind me, each cleverly wrapped in historic racing stripes and livery. Clearly Zwart is taking it very easy on us. But since he’s a longtime racer, I know he’s comfortable with me riding only feet away from his bumper. I’m trying to stay as close as I possibly can.

On the straightaways, he pulls away easily, then allows us to catch back up. But on the very sharp switchbacks, my AWD with torque vectoring pulls through the tight corners in a way that his rear-wheel GT2 simply can’t. While he fights for traction, I can literally feel my front wheels engage and pull me through. It is brilliant.

I’m also impressed by the precision of the steering. I can position the car exactly where I want it, a necessity when I’m riding the very edge of the asphalt, with only a small berm of mounded dirt between the Porsche and oblivion.

(Porsche)

I don’t always love turbo engines, but I’m appreciating them today. The turbo forces air into the engine, helping to counteract the power-stealing effects of high altitude. The race course actually begins at more than 9,300 feet, twisting its way up 156 turns to the tippy top. Naturally aspirated engines end up gasping for air — just like many of their drivers. While the Macan feels mostly full-powered at the start, it becomes ever less potent as I ascend. Still, impressively, it never becomes sluggish.

The future winners of Pikes Peak will all be driving electric cars, which don’t suffer any adverse effects of the altitude. In 1916, when the drivers wore leather helmets and the entire road was dirt, it took the winner almost 21 minutes to summit. Last year, the winning EV did it in just over nine.

No cars go off the road and into the void today

As the road gets ever steeper, we pass banks of snow and patches of ice — another reason to be thankful for the AWD. The line of Porsches is dancing up the road, and Zwart, sensing the finish line at the top, drops the hammer. Wow, he is fast. I’ve got the advantage of being right behind him so I unleash what is left of the Macan’s power. We reach the top, and I see the light in Zwart’s eyes. He’s alive up here. I understand the feeling.

No cars go off the road and into the void today. (Needless to say, there have been fatalities over the years.) I get out, breathing the thin air, and take in the view from the top of the world. This may be the best finish line on the planet.

I played video games to train for racing at Le Mans

2016-06-14T12:10:36-04:00

This is The Harper Spin, a weekly column from seasoned auto critic Jason H. Harper. He’s raced at Le Mans, crushed a car in a 50-ton tank, and now, he’s bringing his unique style to The Verge.

Last year at this time, I was preparing to race at Le Mans. And I was pretty much quaking in my fireproof suit.

My race wasn’t the grand 24-hour event, just a 45-minute sprint race scheduled beforehand. But when it comes to the infamous Circuit de la Sarthe, there is no “just.” The course is one of the most challenging and dangerous in all of motorsport; a 8.5-mile coil around the French town of Le Mans, of which almost six miles take place on public roads closed for the event.

Imagine driving 200 miles an hour down a narrow road with a dividing line…

Why is it so tricky? Take the notorious Mulsanne Straight. Any other time of year it is a 3.7-mile, two-lane rural road that ambles through the forested countryside, home to puttering Renaults and tipsy motorbikes. But early every summer — the 18th and 19th of June this year — that all changes. Imagine driving 200 miles an hour down a narrow road with a dividing line, bumps and fences alongside. At night, in the rain.

My car was an Aston Martin GT12, a blunt English hammer with nearly 600 horsepower. The race was an exhibition of modern Aston Martins against one another, and was coined the Michelin Aston Martin Le Mans Festival. There would be more than 200,000 fans watching.

How do you learn a track as complicated as Le Mans? In truth, the full “track” doesn’t exist at all, except this one time of year when they close the roads. So you can’t just pop over and practice throughout the year. We would get two short sessions the Wednesday and Thursday before. Helpful, but not enough to learn all of the twists and turns.

…at night, in the rain

So I, like so many other competitors, had but one recourse: a video game. Forza Motorsport features the Circuit de la Sarthe, and it’s reproduced faithfully enough that you can learn the sequence of turns and the braking points. My plan was to get an Xbox One and learn the track.

There was one more problem. I really, really suck at video games. Especially driving ones.

My video game education was a truncated one. I was a child of the 1970s. My hand-eye coordination was poor and someone convinced my parents that an Atari 2600, one of the few video game consoles of the time, would be a help. I got one for Christmas and it was a very big deal. I remember hours of River Raid and Pitfall, Pong and Missile Command. Good times — and my coordination did improve. But by middle school, the console was shelved. I ignored all the ensuing consoles — the Game Boys and PlayStations, Nintendos, Xboxes. I ended up focusing on other stereotypical teenager things, like girls and parties and even studying.

(Max Earey / Aston Martin)

And, for the last 15-plus years, there have been race tracks. Real ones. I wasn’t very good at first, and then I got better. I took courses and was taught by masters, some who have raced and won at Le Mans. The dynamics of a car at speed began to make sense. I learned to interpret the sensation of rear tires losing traction underneath me; the G forces on my body when I’m braking just short of ABS; the stubborn feeling of wash that comes with understeer; and the happy sensation when a car is turning perfectly, as if it is pivoting around your hips. My own body is the barometer by which I interpret a car’s movements.

None of that stuff works in a video game. It’s just the piped-in sound and the perspective outside the front window and maybe some faint feedback from a steering wheel. Over the years people have prodded me into showing off my driving skills on a video game. Hilarity ensues. Any 10-year-old with a few hours playing the game will beat me as I run into one wall after another.

Nonetheless, I sourced an Xbox One and Forza Motorsport 5 and a car seat with a feedback-yielding steering wheel and pedal set, and I slowly assembled all the stuff together. I learned that you couldn’t just plug in the damn Xbox and play like my Atari of yore. You have to connect to the net and make a profile. At various times during the process I’d get annoyed and bored and go do something in the real world. But time was ticking and the race approaching.

Any 10-year-old with a few hours playing the game will beat me as I run into one wall after another

The good news was that when I drove a track I knew well, like Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, the course was perfect, and the cars reacted like they really should. So I knew that the Circuit de la Sarthe would be fairly faithful. (I watched in-car videos, also, to compare.) This verisimilitude would be critical for places on the track like the Mulsanne Straight, where you are traveling long periods of time, at high speeds, and need to learn where to brake in relation to passing buildings and telephone poles.

Slowly, the course came into focus. The start line past the spectator stands, the hill up to the Dunlop Bridge. The Mulsanne’s twin chicanes seemed pretty straightforward, except that you enter the first from the right and the second from the left. (Screw that up and you’ll wreck.) The end of the straight terminates at a terrifying right hand turn that is sharper than 90 degrees. Screw that up and you crash. And eventually the highly challenging Porsche Curves, which have tight walls and are deceptive and are another really likely place to crash. Sense a theme developing?

I was racing at the behest of Aston Martin, and my teammate with whom I would share racing duties was Andy Palmer, the company CEO. (Nice guy, and a good man behind the wheel, as it would turn out.) So days before I arrived in France, I was ushered to a facility with a racing simulator outside of Cambridge, England. I expected something with hydraulics, that would feel more like the real thing. But no, it was basically the cockpit of a car in front of a massive pixelated screen. It ran a different racing program, but was basically the same. A few technicians watched from a control room as I drove around and around, occasionally crashing.

Wonderful, I thought. I’m terrible at this and I’ve got spectators.

A few technicians watched from a control room as I drove around and around, occasionally crashing

Then one of the workers at the facility, perhaps in his late teens, clambered into the “car” and said he’d show me how it was done. And he was fast — in the video game. But he was running heedlessly over curbs and on the sides of the roads. I asked him if he’d ever driven at Le Mans or any real track at all fact. No, he told me. And I shook my head. Try that shit on a real track and you’ll end up slipping on debris and crashing into a wall.

“Video games are bullshit,” I thought to myself.

And three days later, I really was at Le Mans, and about to race. I was in a lineup of dozens of Aston Martins and we swept toward the starting line and the crowds were packed with fans and all of the drivers pretty much lost their minds. All of the preparation that we all did seemed to vanish in an instant. Cars came into the first corners four abreast, which is lunacy. I knew if there was a crash it would be a very real one. Sure enough, as I got to the first chicane on the Mulsanne, there was smoke and debris and parts littered across the track, and I drove around them.

(Max Earey / Aston Martin)

Then, coming out of the Ford Chicane, I spun myself and went into the gravel. I got out and resumed the race, trailing rocks behind me. There was another wreck and then another. Finally the race was “red flagged” — one of the wrecks was so big and serious that they needed to fix one of the catch fences, so the race was officially stopped.

The video game was essential, as it turned out. I was truly thankful to have a tool that so faithfully reproduced the lefts and rights, the dips and curbing. But there’s simply no way to prepare for the reality of racing at Le Mans. The size and scope of the place, the pressure of other cars bearing down on you and the constant threat of crashing. And all those fans.

You might be really good at driving video games. Nissan even puts on the GT Academy for the best Gran Turismo players and puts them in real cars, and some have gone on to become winners.

As for me, though? Nissan probably would’ve tossed me out of the first round.

The BMW M2 is the perfect sports car for everyone

2016-06-07T08:31:18-04:00

Here we are, just three guys, standing amid a sea of red and white traffic cones. Dan Seifert, the bearded one; James Bareham, the Englishman; and me, neither bearded nor English. We are in our early 30s to mid 40s to a bit beyond. A Verge tech editor, the Verge’s creative director, and the Verge car guy.

What brings us together here today is the BMW M2.

Last February I drove Bimmer’s brand new, back-to-basics sports coupe and fell desperately in love. Wanna-own-it kind of love. In my write-up, I described it as lyrical, human, flawed, and dazzling. This spry little two-door four-seater harkens back to the earliest and best BMWs, the 2002 and the first generations of the M3. And it starts around $51,000, a steal when it comes to a genuine German sports car.

I posited that it would be enjoyed equally by all measures of drivers, from the novice to the highly experienced. And so the three of us and a video crew trundled to the New York Catskills to the Monticello Motor Club (MMC) to test that theory.

This is The Harper Spin, a weekly column from seasoned auto critic Jason H. Harper. He’s raced at Le Mans, crushed a car in a 50-ton tank, and now, he’s bringing his unique style to The Verge.

The M2 is not a track car. But MMC is a safe facility in which to test the limits of the BMW. We can open it up on the long back straightaway and push hard into corners and never worry about oncoming traffic, pedestrians, or cops. Monticello also has a skid-pad — a wide-open area paved with grippy asphalt — on which we set up a small course bounded by cones. Cones are better to hit than walls, after all. Our autocross, as it is called, is tight with sharp turns, but includes one stretch that allows for a bit of speed and even some drifting.

As for skill levels, Dan has never been on a track, and currently drives a Toyota Corolla with a baby seat in back. Yet he has driven older BMW sports sedans, so he has a notion of how they can and should feel. He can also drive a stick shift. He’s our (relative) novice. James used to ride motorcycles around racetracks in the UK, but hasn’t been on one a long time, so is serving as our intermediate driver.

I’m the hot shoe for this exercise. I’m not a professional racecar driver, but years of experience and hundreds of laps should serve.

We discuss the car briefly. This one has a six-speed manual, though it’s available with an automatic. The engine is an inline six-cylinder with a single twin-scroll turbocharger, making 365 horsepower and 343 pound-feet of torque. “And it’s small,” says Dan. “In all the right ways. The new M3 looks as big as an old M5.”

He’s right.

In my previous review I marveled at the M2’s ease of driving. You can learn to go fast in it quickly. And within five minutes on our autocross course, Dan is swinging around nicely, tires chirping. Only a few cones are overturned. He gets out of the car, tries to pretend like he’s very cool and collected, and then starts huffing, gesticulating, face turning a bit red. “You’re kinda excited,” I tell him. He smiles, a bit sheepish. “Yeah, the car is really, really fun.”

James is excitable by nature, so he’s sweating and jabbering before he even gets in the car. We can see his Cheshire grin through the window, growing wider as he rows through the gears and the speed picks up. A rear tire strikes a cone and it goes airborne and I can hear James giggle manically through his rolled-down window.

And we haven’t even made it out on the real racetrack yet.

Dan left the car’s electronic traction and stability controls settings on “sport,” allowing for lots of fun, but corralling in excess lateral movements and generally preventing you from getting into trouble. James moved it to “sport plus,” which is the advanced mode. I get in and shut off the traction control, and am swiftly reminded why I so liked the car in the first place. It transitions seamlessly through an extremely tight-radius circle, finessed and smart. But give a hit of gas in an open corner, and the car gets up on its rubber feet and dances. Drifts are easy. I leave smears of burnt rubber along the course. When I swing in, the MMC track manager, Chris Duplessis, who’s been watching, gives me a puppy-dog look. Oh, fine. I turn the car over to him, and he takes the car through the course sideways. “This thing is amazing,” he gushes. Yep.

I leave smears of burnt rubber along the course

As for the race track itself: I did my best to scare Dan. We got it to about 145 mph. He didn’t seem all that afraid, but did seem to be enjoying himself immensely. (Just watch the video for a sense of that.) James got his laps on the track, too, and came away with the idea that he could use more practice — and that the M2 is the most forgiving and fun car in which to do it.

As for me, I was reminded that the M2 takes even racetrack abuse with aplomb, and makes pretty much everything you do it in, from city driving to sideways drifting, seem easy and enjoyable. I’m still very much in love.

Photography: James Bareham

Video: Phil Esposito, Max Jeffrey, and Mark Linsangan

Sound: Andrew Marino

Correction: In the video, we state that the M2 has 340 horsepower, but it actually has 365 horsepower. We apologize for the error.