Ferrari 550 Maranello

We have been among those who have roundly praised the 550 Maranello as a GT car of supreme performance that is also easy to run and to own, assuming you have the necessary $222,434. But even its best friends would not describe it as the most beautiful Ferrari. The stylists at Pininfarina seemed to lose their sure touch with this derivative design; some initially compared it with a Toyota Supra.
But the 550 Maranello looks lithe and athletic alongside the bulky, aggressive Vanquish. Its interior is more delicately furnished, in this case in rich crimson leather contrasting with the gunmetal exterior. This car, from Ferrari U.K., was fitted with optional "Daytona" seats with ribs and perforations like those of the classic 1970s Ferrari of the same name. These are bucket seats in the original sense of the term, deeply curved and with a superbly comfortable, if tight, fit.
The instruments and the controls are traditional — clearly legible white-on-black dials hooded in black leather binnacles, with a row of toggle switches and simple knobs for climate control. There is not much ornamentation, and Ferrari doesn't see the need to install name tags all over the cockpit, as does Aston Martin. The yellow enamel badge with the black prancing horse at the center of the thin leather-rimmed wheel says quite enough, but lest we forget what makes Ferrari special, there is a little plaque celebrating "Campioni del Mondo 2000," a reference to Ferrari's winning the Formula 1 Grand Prix title last year.
The other distinctive feature of this and every other manual-transmission Ferrari is the signature metal "gate" that guides the shift lever into its six gears. The shifting effort is not as high as in some previous models, but the clutch pedal still needs plenty of effort and has a long travel. Many more modest cars have better and faster shifters, and the Aston's thoroughly modern robotized system further emphasizes the point.

2004 Mercedes-Benz SL500

Yes, it's expensive, the second priciest of the bunch, and yes, it's the heaviest, and it has a folding top with more complexity and moving parts than a roomful of robots. But a brisk drive down a country road on a sunny day in this particular Silberpfeil can define automotive elegance.
It was agreed that the SL led the field in competence on the open interstates and in the more demanding environs of the two-lanes. Its Active Body Control suspension kept the 4220-pound machine within controllable limits at all times, and the driving environment with the hardtop up or down offered a pleasant combination of comfort and tactile connection with the driving experience.
Two of the five testers wished for more seat-bottom elevation to aid in thigh support, and complaints were registered—as always—about the German fascination with overwrought complexity on basic radio, GPS, and air-conditioning controls.
The sophisticated hardtop on the Mercedes not only raises and lowers almost twice as fast as the one on the Cadillac—it can be done at a stoplight—but also ingeniously folds into a smaller package, stealing far less trunk room. Moreover, the SL provides a useful package shelf behind the seats. As a result, despite being only 0.8 inch longer than the Cadillac, the Mercedes provides twice as much luggage space with the top down.
Every detail on the SL is beautifully executed. A push of a button in the trunk slightly raises the folded top to provide access to the eight cubic feet of luggage space beneath it. The sun visors slot neatly into the windshield frame when the top is down, unlike the protruding panels on the Jaguar and Cadillac. These are seemingly minor details perhaps, but when one plans to dump nearly 90 grand into a two-place roadster, the small stuff counts.
The Merc's rated 302 horsepower and two-ton-plus bulk produced the worst power-to-weight ratio of the bunch. But thanks to the largest engine with the highest peak torque at the lowest rpm, the SL was always responsive and delivered midpack performance. Although we are often mesmerized by blinding speed, the fact that the SL500 won this test by a wide margin affirms its broad-spectrum (and our) capabilities.
To be sure, the car is an able performer compared with the competition, but pavement-ripping muscle is not the SL's high card. Rather, its appeal lies in overall balance and attention to detail within the context of its design mission; i.e., to transport two people and their luggage over long distances with speed, comfort, and elegance in all sorts of weather. And every one of us fell in love with its flamboyantly extravagant styling. This is the car to drive when you want to arrive

Aston Martin V-12 Vanquish

For all its advanced technology, the new Aston is no lightweight. It is important to say that straight off because a weight of 4099 pounds explains why it has no chance of beating the Ferrari's performance numbers. Its 5.9-liter V-12, first fitted to the DB7 Vantage model, is in what Aston calls "Stage 2" tune, which means 460 horsepower and 400 pound-feet of torque. Its opponent here, the 550 Maranello, has 19 more horsepower and 19 more pound-feet of torque, and the Ferrari is 187 pounds lighter, despite its mainly steel structure. So the Vanquish was vanquished in the acceleration tests.
But since both are among that elite group of superfast cars capable of 0-to-60 blasts in the low-to-mid-four-second realm and of getting to 100 miles an hour in about 10 seconds, the difference between the two is hardly noticeable on public roads. Indeed, in circumstances short of wringing the last few hundred revs and tenths of a second, the Aston can not only feel quicker but actually be so.
The reason is its electrohydraulic gearshift. Ironically, the system is from Magneti Marelli, the same as the one fitted to the Ferrari 360 F1 but never offered for the front-engined Ferraris. It is a six-speed manual transmission that is operated without a clutch pedal or gearshift but rather by paddle shifters behind the steering wheel. At any time, however, the driver can turn over the job of shifting to the computer by simply pushing a button on the dash marked "ASM," for automatic sequential mode.
As in the Ferrari 360, the left-hand paddle marked with a minus sign is to downshift, the right-hand one to upshift. The Vanquish mates the Magneti Marelli system to a hefty Tremec six-speed manual gearbox. Aston has developed its own software, which ensures the smoothest shifts we have encountered with this type of transmission (which has, oddly enough, not been given a name). The shifting is not as roughly abrupt as the 360 F1's system, even in sport mode, which quickens the shifts. The ASM is perfectly acceptable for dawdling around town.
Downshifts at speed are a delight. Flick the left-hand paddle, and the engine's electronic brain not only blips the throttle but also works out how much of a blip is needed for the swiftest and smoothest engagement.
We are sure most drivers will learn to love the system. Only a couple of things about it disappoint. It dithers and jerks when trying to trickle along in second gear; first gear is engaged automatically only when the car comes to a halt. And it makes starting up and getting going less than instantaneous

2004 Cadillac XLR

The razor-edge bodywork with the cowcatcher grille made for interesting reactions. Some loved the XLR's in-your-face originality, others saw a hunky lack of grace. Either way, the Caddy gets it done on the road, both in high-speed interstate cruising and while working on back-road Grand Prix fantasies—provided sound-system listening is not desired.
We all noted the wind turbulence in the Cadillac's open cockpit—with the windows up or down—and particularly when contrasted with the other cars' abilities to deal with the problems of wind in top-down mode. Another weakness is a lack of storage space in the cockpit behind the seats.
The XLR is the only car in the group in which two occupants must pop the trunk to stow their briefcases. Although the trunk's 12 cubic feet is the largest in the group, that volume is reduced by two-thirds when the hardtop comes looking for space. An added irritation comes in the form of a luggage soaking if the top is raised during a sudden rainstorm. All water on the rear decklid is dumped into the trunk—begging the question, Did anyone in the Cadillac engineering department actually attempt such a maneuver during the 48 months of development?

2004 Jaguar XK8 convertible

was generally agreed among the Ohio contingent that the Jaguar is a fine 8/10ths automobile—that is, a pleasant driver at brisk speeds but less of a contender when serious motoring is required. Although its 294-hp, 4.2-liter V-8 and thoroughly modern six-speed automatic deliver competitive performance, the XK8's size, weight, and age work against it when the going gets brisk.
At 3991 pounds, the Jaguar was the second heaviest in the group. It was also nearly 10 inches longer than any of the others. Moreover, this XK8 was introduced for 1997, and its platform dates back to the mid-'70s XJ-S. As a result, hard driving and bumpy pavement elicit some ungainly cowl shake. And there's a general softness to the Jag's responses that doesn't encourage hard charging.
The Jag has an old-fashioned convertible top. Although it opens and closes quickly with the touch of a button, the top requires the driver to get out and secure a boot in place. Some might like the classic look that comes with this design, but most of us would rather avoid the choreography, simple as it is. Still, there's an advantage to this archaic layout: The top does not invade luggage space, which is undiminished when the top goes down.
We all appreciated the old-world richness of the XK8's cockpit. The classic instrument layout and the full swath of wood from door to door give real meaning to the word dashboard. Most of us found the array of buttons and switches controlling the sound and climate-control systems to be confusing, and a few of us were too close to the windshield header once we established a comfortable driving position. Jaguar's traditional J-gate shifter didn't win any new adherents despite its being coupled to the excellent six-speed automatic, which delivers good fuel economy in this class.
For those who value the flair of its styling and classic trim above all else, the XK8 is an excellent choice. However, if you are willing to embrace more contemporary styling, the newer choices offer some clear functional advantages.

2004 Ferrari Challenge Stradale

You won't find another car here that gets your heart thumping like this Ferrari. But you pay for the pleasure, and we're not just talking about the price.
Stripped of sound insulation and carpeting and with noise-amplifying carbon fiber in place of the usual leather door panels, this Ferrari doesn't simply let the noise in, it invites it. When the aluminum 40-valve V-8 sings its primal scream, no one cares that it blows 93 on the decibel meter (a Honda Accord hits about 74 dBA). When you're cruising, the predominant sounds of the suspension thumping over every road imperfection and the carbon-fiber trim bits squeaking against one another get tiresome almost immediately. How much could a radio weigh?
The Stradale is the most powerful and lightest roadgoing 360 ever built. The 425-hp V-8 has 30 more horses than the 360 Modena. Credit a slightly higher compression ratio (11.2:1 versus 11.0:1) and freer-flowing intake and exhaust systems for the new juice.
Ferrari saved 139 pounds (the Stradale weighs 3152) via the aforementioned missing radio, carpet, and sound insulation; the use of carbon fiber for the rear hatch, door skins, center tunnel, and seat buckets; and ceramic brake rotors.
Stradales are only available with the F1 gearbox that automatically operates the clutch and performs the shifts. All the driver has to do is pull on one of two steering-column-mounted paddles: right for upshifts, left for down. There is no fully automatic mode, but the F1 gearbox will automatically select first gear at a complete stop. Our car also had a launch-control system that greatly helped standing-start acceleration runs.
Once you've pressed the right buttons to turn on launch control, you simply bring the engine revs to the desired level and lift off the brake. The computer then performs a perfect burnout on your behalf. After some experimenting, we found that about 3000 rpm produced the quickest runs.
We think we could have gone a little quicker with a fully manual system, but still, the Stradale's 4.0-second blast to 60 mph was 0.6 second quicker than the last 360 Modena we tested.
Ferrari says its cars are not about the numbers. Considering that the Ferrari finished ahead of the Porsche in voting while costing so much more and not being quicker, we'd have to say the company's right. On the track, the Ferrari was the easiest of the group to drive.
The handling balance is the opposite of the Porsche's: The Stradale only wags its tail when wildly provoked. Yet it doesn't clumsily push through the corners, either. It didn't feel like the lightest, nimblest car here—that's the Porsche's terrain—but it did feel the most solid, the most planted. We did our top-speed testing on a windy day, and with the Porsche jumping around dramatically, we didn't have the cojones to bring it to its claimed 190-mph top end. The Ferrari was just the opposite—buttoned down, secure, undramatic. We ran it to 176 mph with nary a white knuckle. The steering, too, is precise and communicative.

2004 Porsche 911 GT3

The GT3 is an overachieving sports car. On paper, it should have trailed its two competitors in every performance test. It has the poorest power-to-weight ratio here, with each of its 380 ponies burdened by 8.5 pounds, 15 percent more than the Ferrari's 425 horses are saddled with. But this is one scrappy car.
It shadowed the more powerful and lighter Ferrari in nearly every acceleration test. The two ran side by side to 60 mph (4.0 seconds) and to 150 (23.9) and were just about equal in the quarter-mile with the Porsche hitting 114 mph in 12.3 seconds and the Ferrari at 115 mph in 12.4.
We loved the GT3's aluminum flat-six engine. Its guttural growl provided a wonderful race-car soundtrack, and it revved freely to its 8200-rpm redline. Even though the peak torque of 284 pound-feet occurs at a fairly high 5000 rpm, there's still plenty of grunt at lower rpm, and the throttle response is prompt.
We weren't so thrilled with the shifting action of the six-speed manual transmission. Our test car had a rubbery linkage that didn't provide a clear path through the gears. We had to be very deliberate with the shifts, and that extra effort probably cost the GT3 a 10th or so in the acceleration times.
No time was lost on the skidpad as the GT3 pulled an astonishing 1.03 g, a figure that's been bested by only one other street car, the $659,000 Ferrari Enzo. The Stradale and the GT trailed the Porsche by 0.05 g.

Ferrari F430

Even in the exalted company this car shared during our search for the perfect sports-car environment, a drive in the F430 was a transcendental experience. This is surely the most interactive high-performance car on the road right now, combining vivid acceleration, sensational engine sounds, razor-sharp steering, and lucid feedback in one charismatic package.
Having driven the 360 Modena variants, we expected the F430 to be good, but all of us were flat blown away by how good it is. From the moment you turn the red-fobbed key and thumb the red wheel-mounted start button, the pleasure trip starts. There's a whoop from the flat-crank V-8 as it bursts into vigorous life, then a hearty throb as it settles to an idle.
From as little as 2500 rpm, the Ferrari surges forward with real urgency, gaining revs fast until it is seeking the 8500-rpm redline with a long, loud snarl. If you fail to shift in time, the F430 does it for you with a fast, firm gear swap, and right at redline.
The F1 paddle-shift system is much improved over the previous generation, both in speed and smoothness, but full-throttle shifts are still fast and occasionally abrupt. You can find some back-and-forth driveline shuffle, too, at moderate speeds if you're tentative with the controls.
The car feels light and stiff, and it responds quickly and accurately to movements at the steering wheel. Although firmly suspended, the Ferrari's chassis damps sharp edges off most bumps, and it keeps the ride flat and devoid of all but small body movements. You hear and feel big bumps as single, muted impacts with no reverberation.
Out on the fabulous mountain roads we found near Knappenberger's dealership, the F430 was a sheer delight, turning in like a kart, clinging to the line (at 0.96 g) with a clearly transmitted sense of what the contact patches are doing, and blasting out on a clean burst of sound, the V-8 yelling like a modern inline-four sport bike in full voice.
It's hard to explain exactly how well the Ferrari is integrated. It's like a perfectly fitted glove. It goes where you merely suggest it go. It encourages faster corner entries than you would have anticipated, and it builds the driver's confidence, with some initial understeer giving way to a touch of throttle-induced oversteer at corner exits. That the interior is a pleasantly arranged space with plenty of room and a natural driving position is just sauce on the pudding. The F430 even swallows a fair bit of luggage

Lamborghini Gallardo

At 8000 rpm in the Lamborghini Gallardo, the exhaust broadcasts a magnificent V-10 fanfare. Where the Aston Martin utters a quintessential staccato bark, the Gallardo trumpets a mostly unbroken timbre. Only occasionally do you hear a warble something like that of the old five-cylinder Audi Quattro rally car.
The sound is entirely in line with the car's amazing visual presence, which is a wholly updated evolution of the unique Lamborghini look and is pretty spectacular in the pearlescent yellow you see here. Forget about going unnoticed by police and public alike. This is the extrovert's exotic.
Convenient for the extrovert, then, that the Gallardo works so well as actual transportation. Conventional doors gape wide to provide access, and although the seats are low, reasonably limber drivers and passengers should have no problem getting in. Space is an issue only for very tall drivers, particularly with the manual-transmission model (the so-called e-gear paddle-shift system is a $10,000 option), where you need room to dance on the pedals.
The manual shifter lives in a metal maze in classic tradition and suffers from the clackety-clack action shared by most of those mechanisms. But selections are reasonably quick and positive after a little practice. Acceleration testing brings out the worst of the system and resulted in the death of the clutch after one too many slipped-clutch starts. Thus, our test data are from an e-gear model tested in '04.
Blame that dead clutch on an otherwise excellent all-wheel-drive system that operates transparently to optimize traction and stabilize handling. Lamborghini says the Gallardo is tuned for initial understeer followed by neutral handling characteristics, and none of us would gainsay that. Although the steering might have a more stolidly Germanic feel than the Italian name might suggest, the Gallardo prompted plenty of praise for its precision and weighting once we took to the mountains.
With less communication than the Ford or Ferrari, the Lambo's stability during high-speed cornering was more a matter of trust than sensory assurance, but it still made excellent time on our mini-Targa Florio, handicapped more by the visual impediment its A-pillars present to drivers than its handling limitations. Equipped with a variable-volume intake tract as well as variable valve timing, the 5.0-liter V-10 has an excellent torque spread, providing strong thrust throughout the rev range. It is pure aural indulgence to spin the V-10 to its 8100-rpm redline.

Porsche 911 Turbo S Cabriolet

This 911 Turbo S may not be the fastest car in the group (with the second-highest power-to-weight ratio after the Aston), but it does boast a convertible top that has been wind-tunnel-tested to 210 mph. That's comforting in a car that builds speed with the determination this car shows. Despite having the lowest horsepower in this test, the Porsche's 0-to-60-mph time of 4.0 seconds was second quickest. It would probably have been even faster were it not for the serious rear-wheel hop that occurs just about at the point of maximum hookup.
A concerted high-intensity thrust in each gear is achieved without any fuss and is accompanied by a roar like a jet on full afterburner, with an overlay of that resonant exhaust blare so familiar from 40 years' worth of racing 911s. Surprisingly, the Turbo S is the third-heaviest car here, due in part to its all-wheel-drive system and steel bodywork. But it never feels anything other than fast and responsive.
Another surprise: The Porsche felt quite lively and communicative. We remember the car's being almost sterile in comparison to a Ferrari 360 Modena it competed against in an earlier engagement. Perhaps it's just the passage of years, but the somewhat jiggly ride and tendency to dart off-course at high speed contradicted our earlier impressions. True to Swabian form, the Porsche has taut, well-damped controls and responds best to deliberate inputs.
The proximity of the windshield and the short nose with its prominent fender bulges lend the driver a pleasant sense of intimacy with the car, and even if the dashboard retains that old blob-on-a-log design, its textures and color scheme have been vastly improved. Without the handsome new classmates in this group, the Porsche might seem to be all any enthusiast could wish for.
But there are the inevitable shortcomings of a rear-engine design. We ran the Turbo S through our lane-change test several times with the Porsche Stability Management (PSM) switched on. Once we'd established a baseline, we switched it off. One run with the system off was enough. Although the 911's handling is much improved these days, especially with all-wheel drive, physics cannot be denied. We could almost match the PSM-conducted runs without electronic supervision, but the car felt spooky. Porsche pro driver Hurley Haywood might have done significantly better, but he wasn't around at the time.

Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG

Anyone driving the SL65 for the first time will report back — probably with big eyes — that the thing accelerates as if it had a military ramjet in the back. But the real story with this car is that it is intended as a high-speed luxury convertible capable of hauling you and your luggage to your vacation home in comfort and relative quiet.
The thrust available from this 604-hp monster with 738 pound-feet of torque is its calling card, and it helps the SL65 keep up with nimbler cars in the mountains, where its 4480-pound weight starts working against it. The Benz isn't particularly ill-mannered in the hills, understand, it just won't be jammed into corners. Even with the active roll-control system switched to sport, the SL65's large mass produces understeer, and the driver is soon admonished by the electronic stability program (ESP) to back off. As boss Csere noted, the rule here is: slow in, fast out.
You can tighten the line during moderately fast cornering by simply giving the Benz some gas. Our editors quibbled about steering quality in this car, but most felt that although the effort was light, the mechanism produced accurate results. In character with the rest of the car, refinement takes precedence over involvement.
Nonetheless, the car's skidpad performance was respectable at 0.92 g, as was its lane-change speed of 69.1 mph — faster than the Porsche 911 Turbo S, despite the fact that the ESP cannot be disabled entirely. Or perhaps because of it. The integration of the various electronic systems has been meticulously engineered to save overly enthusiastic drivers from themselves.
The sound the V-12 makes as it comes on boost is an extraordinary blend of mechanical and pneumatic acoustics — a giant, percussive whoosh as the engine pins you back in your seat between 2000 rpm and the 6000 redline, in every gear. Check out the passing-acceleration figures. Even counting the downshift that greets a big prod at the pedal, a 2.3-second 50-to-70-mph time speaks of being able to pass anything, anytime.
Ironically, our acceleration results are slower than expected, even though the car meets the factory claims for 0-to-60 times. That may be due to the intense heat (over 90 degrees) at our desert test site, where repeated runs had the car's coolant gauge reaching the top of its scale, whereupon the engine computer cuts boost and probably retards ignition spark, too, for good measure. That slows the SL65 right down

2005 Porsche 911 Carrera

The 911's classic, time-weathered shape has never looked better. The wider fenders give a beefy, more purposeful look that complements the silhouette. And the packaging benefits of the rear-engine layout are as handy as ever. For the first time, the 911 is longer than the Corvette. And the Porsche, at least, still has room for a couple of kids in the back seats.
So when it comes to handling, which is better, an engine in front or in back? For racing, the answer is neither—the mid-engine design is clearly better, as demonstrated by every purpose-built race car. But what about street cars that offer at least some practicality?
We're not going to answer that one because, well, there is no simple answer. Here, both of these cars are fantastic curve carvers. On the street, though, the nod goes to the 911.
We never found a patch of road that gave us even a whiff of that "Oh, %#$@!" feeling that precedes some type of midcorner correction or wheel sawing. Editor-at-large Pat Bedard calls this "path accuracy." At speed, how accurately can you place the car? With the 911, the answer is in fractions of an inch; with the Vette, it's in inches. This feeling likely is why the 911 went through the cones of our lane-change test 1.1 mph faster than the Vette. You can plant this car anywhere

2006 Ford Fusion SEL V-6

As an indicator of how competitive this class is, second, third, and fourth places are within six points on a 0-to-250 scale. And when the math was finished, the new Ford had edged out the Hyundai and Toyota for second place.
Ford thinks the Fusion looks best in black, inside and out, and it busied itself to find an example in time for this test. For sure, black contrasts strongly with the massive chrome grille and glittery headlight arrays cut into the front corners of the bodywork.
Inside, the Fusion is no less distinctive. Whereas all the others relied on fake-wood trim, the Fusion has high-gloss black plastic panels contrasting with the exceptionally coarse-grained dash and other interior panels. Heavy oatmeal-colored stitching kept the seats from being all black. After establishing the theme of glittering chrome outside, and carrying it inside to the door handles, shifter, and console trim, we expected to see it continued into the instrument cluster in the form of bright bezels around the dials. Instead, we found frosty gray paint; turns out the chrome goes to the up-priced Mercury Milan.
Ford obviously tried to design the front sheetmetal so it could be assembled with loose tolerances and, therefore, low manufacturing cost. Very sensible, we think, but it should be done in a way that escapes the customer's notice. From certain angles, our test car's hood gap was so wide it looked to be unlatched. All around the car, the Fusion's panel gaps are wider than those of the comparison cars. And like the Hyundai, it's not good at smoothing the parting lines on molded parts. "Fit and finish" is the Fusion's weakest rating category.
Most of the test drivers liked this car's controllability and the way they fit inside. It feels heavy in motion, very stable and deliberate. Road grip topped the others at 0.83 g. There were complaints, however, about the high level of road noise from a variety of sources, and particularly from tire impacts. Ride comfort is midpack, behind that of the Honda and Toyota.
The Fusion was alone in the group in having six speeds in its automatic, although you wouldn't know it from the "D" and "L" choices on the shifter. A few drivers reported some hunting between fifth and sixth gears at freeway speeds. More disturbing was the occasional jerky snatch into first gear at parking-lot speeds.
Inside, the front seats drew favorable reviews for their firmness and good positioning. The Ford, however, was the only one with a power option that moves just the seat position; backrest angle is changed with an ordinary manual lever. We also thought the turn-signal lever was oddly positioned; it angles up toward 10 o'clock. The HVAC controls, down near the tunnel, are very difficult to see, as are the steering-wheel buttons.

2006 Toyota Camry XLE V-6

The Camry has held its benchmark status into its fifth year; we'll be talking about its replacement this time in '06. But age, by itself, didn't sink this Toyota in our rankings. Longtime readers know we respect Toyota's buttoned-down quality and thorough execution. That said, the Camry is also a singularly unemotional machine. Consider: Whereas the others all show bright dual exhausts under their bumpers, the Camry has a single unadorned pipe.
The steering responds politely, the accelerator takes a good poke to call up horsepower, the brakes expect your foot to travel a bit before the retardation starts in earnest, and the ride is relatively soft, smoothing the road and making it seem far away. These are the attributes of a superior transportation appliance. The automatic resists part-throttle downshifts, which probably helps fuel economy but also makes the car feel slow-witted in traffic. The word "responsive" just doesn't come up in any appraisal of this car.
In acceleration, the Camry fell behind the others, although its 7.6-second run to 60 was barely behind the Fusion's 7.4. It finished last through the quarter-mile at 15.9 seconds and 89 mph, compared with 15.7 and 91 for the Ford, third best.
Cornering grip was also lowest at 0.77 g, surely attributable in part to the choice of Michelin Energy tires; they specialize in fuel economy and squeals of protest when pushed. They corner with large, loose, unfun slip angles.
The Camry scores better on the hospitality checklist. The front buckets are wide and unconfining, a virtue for all but the sport seekers. And the rear-seat accommodations are by far the best of the group, with excellent footroom for the 13s worn by one of our test drivers and no complaints up top from the staffer with the big hair. The bench, with fold-down center armrest, has the most supportive shape. There's a feeling of surface plushness in the padding, too, which suggests that the Camry is a class above the others.
We give high marks to the dashboard design, too. All the instruments and controls are high where you can see them easily with just a slight shift of your gaze down from the road. The shape is clean, the materials are classy, decorations are nonexistent. Every gesture is made to count. There is no clutter. The long, graceful instrument pointers emerge from behind black dots in the centers of the dials. The dots are so perfectly black they disappear, leaving all your attention for the needles and numbers

2006 Mazda MX-5 Miata vs. Pontiac Solstice

Last October, we compared the all-new Mazda MX-5 and Pontiac Solstice — for about eight hours. That wasn't enough time to settle the dispute. We were still messing around with the Solstice's knurled seatback control when a Pontiac emissary arrived, demanding the return of his keys. And, in any event, finding suitably twisty roads in Michigan's farmland is like finding Prince Charles's riding crop in a box of Cracker Jack. Or is it Camilla who controls the whereabouts of the royal riding crop?
So we don't apologize for this MX-5/Solstice redux. They're like the Accord and Camry of affordable roadsters, competing for identical turf. Both are front-engine four-cylinder rear-drive two-seaters with manually lowered tops. Their power outputs are within seven horsepower of each other, they offer nearly identical weight distribution, and they're within a tenth of an inch in length. And both are — well, in this case — red.
Although Mazda has produced 720,000 Miatas since 1989, the company regards the Solstice (and the Saturn Sky, which will debut next spring) as the deadliest of competition. Want proof? Mazda has already conceded that Europe will shortly displace North America as the MX-5's main market. So if you spy the former Ms. Parker Bowles mercilessly whipping an MX-5 down the lanes between Didcot and Banbury Cross, blame the "We Build Excitement" guys.
Our two little roadsters felt like tail-wagging, ingratiating puppies. So it was admittedly peculiar to test them in conjunction with the rabid pit bulls of sports cardom, the Corvette Z06 and Dodge Viper SRT10 coupe (see our comparison test). It was like Barney Fife and Peter Pan sitting ringside as Mike Tyson and Goldberg chewed off each other's ears.
Consider: At Grattan Raceway Park, where the big dogs could be safely let off their leads, the Corvette was entering the braking zone for Turn One at 145 mph. At the same point, the MX-5 was humming along at 106, the Solstice at 104. But neither did the little dogs evince heart-stopping snap oversteer, as did the Z06, and neither of the pups inflicted burns on palms and thighs, as did the Viper.
More important, the Mazda and the Pontiac demolished our southern-Ohio Hocking-heim Ring as comprehensively as the critics demolished Animal House. Both roadsters encouraged their drivers to experiment with braking points, gears, early apexes, late apexes, induced understeer, lift-throttle oversteer — even as their grinning pilots glimpsed overflying sandhill cranes and overhanging hemlocks. In contrast, the Corvette and the Viper demanded the sort of concentration familiar to rookie neurosurgeons. Both required perfect apexes and moments of braking so brutal as to produce flop sweat. Both obscured vital sightlines and emitted an exhaust roar that drew civilian frowns. And both required multiple trips to the region's lone BP station, an ignoble locus in which to sit immobile as the little dogs whizzed past like skinny whippets.

2006 Ford Fusion, vs. Honda Accord, Hyundai Sonata, Toyota Camry

No point in overcomplicating this matchup. The mid-size-sedan market has two promising new four-doors. So we've set up the newbies against the benchmarks of the class, the bestseller Toyota Camry and a perennial 10Best favorite, the Honda Accord. If a star or two have been born, this method should point them out pronto and tell us how bright they are.
What's new? America's own Ford has just given birth to the Fusion, a boldly sculpted four-door dropped into the yawning gap between the size-S Focus and the size-XXL Five Hundred. And Korea's Hyundai has replaced its seductively priced Sonata with an all-new wider, taller, longer Sonata that's lost none of its window-sticker allure.
A word of advice: Expect your expectations to be shattered in this exploration, starting with birthplaces. The new Korean is made in the U.S., and the new American model is not. Hyundai built an all-new manufacturing plant in Montgomery, Alabama, for this 2006 Sonata. Ford's Fusion is assembled in Hermosillo, Mexico, on a platform borrowed from its partner's Mazda 6.
Although the benchmarks need no introduction, a few facts may bring them into better focus. The Toyota Camry was new for the 2002 model year and has proven to be immensely popular in the market: 426,990 were sold in the U.S. last year. This is one of the most trusted cars in America.
Honda's Accord sells less well—386,770 found new American homes last year—but it's a consistent C/D favorite, having earned a 10Best award in 19 of the 23 years we've been publishing that list. The Accord in stores now, face-lifted for 2006, is the seventh generation to wear that name. It was a new design for the 2003 model year. Both the Accord and the Camry are built in U.S. plants—the Honda in Marysville, Ohio, and the Toyota in Georgetown, Kentucky.
While the Taurus still lingers in the Ford lineup, something for the fleets that insist on low, low prices, the Fusion is the logical replacement for that tired old workhorse. In size, the Fusion is about seven inches shorter than today's Taurus, but it's longer than the mid-'80s original (see sidebar). Today's discerning buyers, however, don't look to the Taurus as a reference. The Camry and the Accord set the tone of the market, and Ford has obviously used them as benchmarks just as we have. The Fusion is an inch longer than the Camry and nearly an inch shorter than the Accord, on a wheelbase that splits the fraction between them.
Really, there are no significant differences in exterior dimensions among any of these models. These four sedans are meant to compete vigorously for your dollars, and their makers have been diligent in duplicating the virtues of their opponents.

2006 Ferrari F430 Spider F1

It's fair to say that until recently Ferraris haven't been celebrated for their excellence in the area of fit and finish, or their electronic sophistication. But it's also fair to say the F430 Spider will make anyone familiar with the breed forget all past sins of omission. Equipped with the latest F1 transmission and the most ingenious electric softtop mechanism we've seen, this successor to the 360 Spider makes its predecessor seem almost crude by comparison.
Push a clearly marked center-console button, and the rear cowling lifts, the top wads itself, and then it disappears into an impossibly small slot beneath the twin teardrop fairings behind the seats. Like the action of the Lambo's top mechanism, this engages a squad of hydraulic actuators — seven of them — and takes about 20 seconds. Other examples of attention to detail: There's a small crescent-shaped indentation near the trailing edge of the fuel door that helps quell wind noise, an index of extensive wind tunnel development. And a pair of thumb-shaped depressions at about ten and two o'clock on the steering wheel rim are home for the horn buttons — right where you want 'em.
The multiposition preset dial for the transmission, suspension, and stability-control system is handily located on a steering-wheel spoke, at about 5 o'clock, and there's a large glass cover over the engine bay, so all can admire the red crackle finish on the intake system of the F430's 4.3-liter V-8.

2006 Lotus Exige

You don't even have to see this car to understand its character; just check the features list — or, more accurately, what's absent from that list. No power steering. No power-seat adjustment. No power mirrors. No cruise control. No auto-dim inside mirror. No glove box. No map pockets. No automatic climate control. No cup holders, at least not as standard equipment.
Minimalism in a $52,000 car? What's up with that? No mystery, really. You don't see power mirrors, cruise control, cup holders, and such in race cars, and that's the essence of the Exige. It meets minimal standards for street use, but its main task is to deliver optimal performance on a racetrack or autocross course. That also applies to the Lotus Elise. So what do you get for the extra $8000?
In a sense, you get vaporware. Although the Exige and the Elise employ the same rigid frame and interior layout, they share almost no body panels. The only commonalities are the outer door skins and the rocker panels. Beyond that, every inch of the Exige's polymeric epidermis was sculpted to increase downward aero pressure, which builds in direct ratio to speed. The faster you go, the more the air presses the car onto the pavement, which magnifies its grip.
The main elements in the Exige's aero advantage are the front splitter and the big rear wing, and the payoff can be expressed on paper. According to Lotus wind-tunnel data, at 100 mph the Elise has 8.6 pounds of aero downforce at the front, 4.4 pounds at the rear. When the Exige is going the same speed, there are 42.5 pounds squashing down the front end and 48.2 pounds on the rear.
But those are just numbers. The practical effect is far more persuasive, particularly in fast corners. Where the Elise is balanced on a pinpoint, the Exige hunkers down and sticks to the track like quick-dry paint.
This does wonders for a driver's confidence, and it also makes for some surprising on-track results. Road Atlanta is a horsepower track, and we expected the Cayman's big edge in horsepower to translate into quicker lap times. And it did, although not by as much as we had anticipated. The difference was just 2.7 seconds, most of it bound up in the Cayman's superior speed down the long (0.8 mile) back straight. But the Exige was quicker in the twisty sections and handled directional changes as deftly as a ferret chasing a rat through a maze.

2006 Lotus Exige vs. 2006 Porsche Cayman S

Wait a minute, who called this meeting? Porsche Cayman S versus Lotus Exige? Track toy versus this new Porsche that's not quite a 911 but pretty damn close? You guys cannot be serious.
It's true that the commonalities here aren't quite as comprehensive as you normally see — and we normally prefer — in most of our comparos. But the major comparative points are here: two seats, mid-engine, sports-car heritage, sports-car capabilities, and similar pricing. And if you think contrasto instead of comparo, it's easier to digest.
It was certainly easy enough to digest as an assignment. Oh — leave the frozen tundra of Michigan in mid-December for the benign climate of Georgia? Three days of putting a couple of brand-new sports cars through their paces? Including a day at Road Atlanta? Well, okay, guess we'll just have to leave that snow-blower repair for later.
Fact is, we had the same sense of mismatch going in as you may have right now. Like other Porsches, the Cayman hasn't forgotten its racing roots. But it hasn't forgotten that at least some owners might consider it as their one and only automobile, either. Which means the designers had to pay attention to mundane nonracing considerations such as NVH, luggage space, and even ride quality. In the everyday motoring world, man does not live by maximum lateral g alone.
The Lotus Exige pretty much ignores all the foregoing. It pays only the sketchiest lip service to the notion of achieving desirable ride quality, and luggage space is a joke, and who the hell cares about NVH when we're having all this fun? Hey, it's s'pozta make noise. You ever hear of a race car that didn't make noise? Where you from, dude?
We confess that we more or less misunderstood the Lotus concept when we first beheld the Exige at the Geneva auto show in 2004. Ah, an Elise with a fixed roof. More civilization, right? A little more viable as an all-around car, right?
Wrong. The top on the Exige is more permanently in place than the one that covers occupants in the Elise, in the sense that it's hard and bolted into place. Still, if it's a sunny day and you care to take the time to unbolt it, it's removable. Just leave it in the garage, and pray the sun keeps shining. And don't stray too far from home.
More important, the Exige makes no more concession to wussy creature comfort than the Elise. You're paying the extra $8000 for stuff that has nothing to do with comfort, unless we're talking about rarefied situations, such as feeling comfortable negotiating the downhill onto the Road Atlanta front straight close to flat out.

2006 Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder

At a glance, the Gallardo Spyder could be mistaken for something left over from a sci-fi flick. But "at a glance" just doesn't apply to this new wind-in-hair confection from the revitalized workshops of Automobili Lamborghini. One glance begets a double-take, which in turn leads to stares and, when the car isn't moving, questions. What is that thang? What's it cost? How fast'll it go? (Cops, in particular, are interested in this last question.) The F430 is no wallflower, but it fades into the background just a bit when it's parked next to the Gallardo's aggressive angles and wedge shape.
The F430 also loses in the department of audible accompaniment. The Ferrari's V-8 emits a very compelling bass snarl as the tach rotates toward redline, but the Lambo's V-10 generates a range of sounds that's nothing short of addictive. Think of it as a pipe organ for the cathedral of speed.
But beyond these two big trumps, the Gallardo holds generally lower cards. Not by much. But enough to give the edge to the boys from Maranello.
Consider the interior. Forget the elements borrowed from the Audi parts bin — audio, climate control, switches. Aside from major instruments that don't scan well in daylight, Audi furnishings aren't exactly low rent. But it's hard to love the Lambo's leather-clad seats for more than an hour at a sitting. They offered more adjustability than our Ferrari's seats, and power adjustability at that, but they were only slightly softer than linoleum. Also, although forward sightlines are good, there are few clues to the exact whereabouts of the nose, and it's all too easy to scrape the chin on gentle inclines (though this is also true of the Ferrari).
Like our F430, this Gallardo was equipped with an automated manual transmission, a $10,000 option that was missing from our "Lords of Envy" test car. There's good news and bad news in this connection. The good news is that the automated transaxle won't let you fry the clutch, which is what happened in our previous encounter. The bad news is the Lambo's e-gear transmission makes launches extremely tricky. This is an all-wheel-drive car, remember, and getting the management computer to agree that everything is okay for a hole-shot launch isn't easy. We were able to achieve exactly one semi-decent getaway, for a 0-to-60-mph run of 4.6 seconds.
Aside from that, the Gallardo's powertrain was generally cooperative, and more than willing. The gearbox was a little jerky downshifting into first gear, and sixth gear is only useful on freeways, but downshifts accompanied by a little throttle blip were otherwise clean, and upshifts prompt. Still, the Ferrari's F1 gearbox performs these functions a bit better, and offers more flexibility.

2006 Ferrari F430 Spider F1 vs. Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder

In March we brought you a first-drive report on the new topless Gallardo, which was headlined thus: "Lamborghini tries to one-up the neighbors in Maranello. And succeeds." That's a pretty bold assertion, particularly in light of the Gallardo coupe's second place in our "Lords of Envy" supercar showdown last August — second, we should add, behind the Ferrari F430 coupe.
There was foundation for our one-up speculation. When the Lamborghini engineers subtracted the Gallardo's solid top, they added more muscle, bumping the output of the 5.0-liter V-10 from 493 horsepower at 7800 rpm to 512 at 8000. That's 29 more horses than the V-8 in the Ferrari F430 makes. Its top speed outdid the Ferrari by 9 mph (to 195). Beyond that — and probably more significant — the topless Gallardo generates even higher visual wattage than its coupe counterpart.
But even so, this is clearly a situation that calls for more than mere speculation. This calls for instrumented test data. Hands on at high speeds. Tops down. Tops up. Mountain roads. Fast sweepers. Decreasing radii. Switchbacks. Urban stop-and-go. Freeway traffic dissection. We do this in the spirit of pure research on your behalf, of course. Barely a scintilla of self-indulgence.
Since the U.S. market accounts for more than 40 percent of all its sales, and a hefty chunk of that percentage goes to California, Lamborghini chose the Los Angeles auto show for the official unveiling last January of its new convertible, where it played to rave reviews. The design, conceived by Lamborghini Centro Stile, entailed at least as much engineering work as it did styling, and the operation of the electrohydraulic (there are six hydraulic rams) power top is an event worth watching. The carbon-fiber lid covering the engine bay rises off its moorings, retreats rearward, the top folds itself up like something from a Harry Potter movie, stuffs itself out of sight, whereupon the cover settles back into place. The whole operation takes about 20 seconds.
Creating a convertible inevitably adds up at the scales, and that's certainly true for the Lambo. In addition to the top mechanism, the spyder has added structural stiffening along the sills, and the A-pillars include automatic pop-up rollover reinforcement integrated with the airbag system. Bottom line: Our "Lords of Envy" Gallardo coupe weighed 3520 pounds. This spyder scaled in at 3820.

2007 Jaguar XK

This new XK convertible is an easy car to underestimate. At first acquaintance it seems docile, mellow, and not at all likely to get in your face. Also hard to forget is that at 300 horsepower the XK is the least powerful car in this test. In the first few minutes after you start the car and drive off, the impression of a mellow and quiet grand tourer is reinforced by a pliant ride, smooth automatic upshifts, a nicely weighted but calm steering wheel, and seats that seem too softly padded for aggressive driving.
Then, as the miles pile on and the pace picks up, the XK seems to amp up its feedback until, at crazy speed — when you're braking hard into a turn, tugging on the paddles, and hearing the dual exhausts bark their baritone song as the computer matches revs — driver and car are suddenly dancing in precise rhythm.
That happened once we'd taken to the hills, but first there were some surprises at the test track.
After declaring the car "a cruiser" in his first logbook notes, tech editor VanderWerp found himself surprised by the car's good acceleration, despite its not having substantially more power than previous Jags. "The weight loss and the quick-shifting tranny must help a lot," he wrote. Then we moved to the lane-change exercise, where the XK cut effortlessly through the cones. We held down the stability-control button, as instructed, to raise the intervention threshold and could detect no more than one brief brake application to settle the car during runs that were more than 2 mph better than the second-quickest car.

2007 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500

The GT500 is at its best on the boulevard, where its decent ride and comfortable interior make it a great place to hang out in between heavy dips into its swollen torque curve.
Rated at a full 500 ponies, the supercharged 5.4-liter DOHC V-8 under its striped hood responds immediately and strongly at any rpm. It feels more responsive at lower revs than the Corvette's 6.0-liter V-8, which is itself hardly a slouch in the torque department. And if you like supercharger whine, you'll love the GT500's soundtrack, but you'd better love it because you can almost always hear the blower.
However, when it comes to pure performance, the GT500 has trouble hanging with the Vette. It prevailed in only two tests, beating the Vette in the lane change by 1.3 mph and outgunning the Chevy in the 50-to-70-mph top-gear acceleration run — 8.8 seconds versus 9.1.
The major reason is the GT500's weight and how it is distributed. The hardware needed to turn the 5.4-liter DOHC V-8 into a 500-hp monster makes for a long and massive list. There's the supercharger with its drive pulleys, the intercooler with its pump and water lines. Even the 5.4-liter heavy-duty block weighs more than the 4.6-liter assembly in the Mustang GT. All told, these parts add about 150 pounds to the car — most of it up in the nose. Combine those extra pounds with the GT500's large brakes, 19-inch wheels and tires, and six-speed transmission, and the result is a porky 3896-pound Mustang.
That adds up to 321 more pounds than the last Mustang GT we tested and a more forward weight bias, degrading from 52.5/47.5 percent to 57.7/42.3 percent.
The Vette is not only 616 pounds lighter but also splits its weight 51.9/48.1 percent front to rear. That more even distribution means more traction off the line, stronger braking, and better handling balance.
At the test track, physics would not be denied. Despite being on tires similar to the Corvette's in size and specification, the GT500 achieved only 0.90 g on the skidpad, whereas the Vette pulled 0.95 g.
During our brake tests, the GT500 nose-dived dramatically but stopped only a little worse than the Corvette. In our usual 70-mph stop, it needed 172 feet. In a much more punishing 120-mph stop, the GT500 came to a halt in 485 feet. The Vette edged it at 161 and 462 feet, respectively

2006 BMW 650i vs. 2006 Cadillac XLR-V, 2007 Jaguar XK, 2007 M-B SL550, 2006 Porsche 911 Carrera

It's spring at last, the Dow is flip-flopping, and — if you're in the right bracket and the damn market goes back up — the Bushies will be giving you just about enough of a tax cut to buy an expensive convertible. For sure, there's nothing like a shiny new convertible to scoop up the joys of spring and blow 'em right into your face. And we have some pretty blossoms in the bunch this year.
For one, the new Jaguar XK convertible, with an all-aluminum body, is now light enough in naturally aspirated form to run within a half-second of the previous generation's supercharged version. Launched close to the debut of its coupe equivalent, the XK convertible benefits from having been a part of the original engineering job. Which means it's inherently stiff and sturdy by design — Jaguar says 50 percent more so than its predecessor, which was known for shivering and shuddering its way across rough surfaces.
The new XK convertible is powered by a 300-hp, 4.2-liter V-8 via a six-speed ZF transmission with a specially massaged manumatic system for super-fast shifts. Traction control, dynamic stability control, and Jaguar's CATS variable-damping shock-absorber control are standard. The fabric convertible top is fully automatic, able to stow itself in about 18 seconds, and as we've become accustomed in Jaguars, the interior is a welcoming blend of burl veneer and soft leather.
Even more welcoming — particularly in this expensive grouping of convertibles — is the XK's as-tested price of $85,200. That makes it the least expensive bloom in the bunch.

Hyundai Tiburon GT V-6

If you're a young car company with ambition, how do you win a place in the world's biggest car market? Easy. First, keep the price down where lots of singles and DINKs can reach for it. How about an $18,494 base for a two-plus-two sports coupe? Next, put priority on high-visibility attractions. The Tiburon leads with the must-haves. The shape is sufficiently wowee! to draw second and third glances, although it begins to look a bit amateurish on closer study. The tail flaunts a big wing. The 17-inch, low-profile, 45-series Michelins have genuine sporting credentials (instead of four-season capability). When you peer through the hatch glass, you see a healthy subwoofer in the side panel.
There's muscle on the menu, too. Our test car has the up-option 2.7-liter V-6 of 181 horsepower mated to a six-speed gearbox.
All of which adds up to a load of good stuff for less than $20,000, and for four grand less than the next coupe up this test's price ladder, the Acura RSX.
It all works reasonably well, too, with a fourth-place finish just one point behind a tie for second.
Reasonably well, but the Tiburon is not excellent at any task, and once you've savored the deal, the rest of the car is never inspiring. Acceleration by most measures trails the others', although occasionally the Tib nips ahead of the Toyota as it does in 0-to-60 times: 7.1 seconds versus 7.3. On the skidpad its 0.82-g grip edges only the Mitsubishi. Nearly the same story in braking, too, where the Tiburon shades the Eclipse by one foot and the Acura by three. Put another way, you could say Hyundai braking and Hyundai acceleration can play in the same league with the famous brands, which they surely do.

Acura RSX Type-S vs. VW New Beetle Turbo S, Hyundai Tiburon GT V-6, Toyota Celica GT-S, Mitsubishi Eclipse GTS

"In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love." That was Al Tennyson's famous take on this season of fresh breezes and tender green sprouts.
Of course, he lived back in the days when savvy young men spun verses instead of 17-inch Goodyears; they surely had to wipe horse exhaust off their boots before entering the parlor, too.
A lot has changed since Al's century (the nineteenth). Now we have cars, and any young man in this season of rising sap who's not thinking about upgrading his trolley has no soul. That's our take on the times, and we're the ones choosing the words for this journal.
After a winter of slip-sliding in the slush, the staff of this rust-belt car magazine is ready for a little sport. Actually, we're ready for a lot of sport, but in deference to Tennyson's young-man focus, let's keep the price friendly.
How about setting the dollar target in the low-$20,000 range? Can we show you something in a sports coupe, emphasis on driving fun?
Let's narrow the range even further to cars light on their feet because they're light on the scale. But instead of limiting the pounds, let's just say front-drivers only. We'll return to Mustangs and Camaros another month.
Everyone looking for a deal these days looks to Hyundai and its low, low prices. All-new for 2003 is the Tiburon, a slinky coupe that's been whetting appetites since the world's first glimpse on the show stand at Frankfurt last year. Fully loaded with a 181-hp V-6 and a six-speed manual, the Tiburon GT barely tops $20,000 when the destination charge has been added in.
From Honda, the obvious choice is the sporting version of the Acura RSX, the Type-S. Standard equipment with that model is a high-revving all-aluminum two-liter four churning out 200 horsepower. A six-speed is standard, of course.
Also packing a six-speed is the eye-catching Toyota Celica, provided you order the GT-S model. Toyota really cranked the fun into this seventh-generation Celica. If there's a more athletic chassis in this class, we'd love to find it. In past tests, the GT-S always impressed us with its quick reflexes and tenacious grip.
Another class veteran is the Mitsubishi Eclipse. Gone, though, are the turbocharged rat racers. New for 2003 is a GTS model with 10 more horses from its naturally aspirated 3.0-liter V-6, a shorter final drive, and a few mild styling tweaks. Hey, it's spring! The glacier has pulled back enough to allow serious traction. Time for g enjoyment.
One more possibility. VW just introduced the "sportiest New Beetle yet." Turbocharged to 180 horsepower, packing a six-speed gearbox, and rolling on 17-inch alloys, the Turbo S may give us reason, finally, to regard the New Beetle as something more than a smirk on wheels. Let's give it a chance.
The Mercury Cougar, especially the promised SVT version, would be a welcome entry into this sports-coupe class, except that Ford recently unpromised the SVT and gave notice that it will terminate the whole Cougar line. Sorry—no lame ducks on this adventure.
As you know, good intentions don't always bring good results. We intended a fairly tight price range, within a spread of $3000 starting at $20,000. But like customers everywhere, we can't always find the exact car we want in time for deadlines. We couldn't find a Hyundai with a sunroof to make a feature match with all the others. So the Tiburon comes in low at $19,344. At the top end, Mitsubishi made a big jump to a $24,752 base for its '03 model, so our budget got busted. Debtors' prison again!
Anyway, we have possession of the keys to five new sports coupes—four sculptured wedges and a Beetle bubble. As Tennyson would have said had he known what's sprouting this spring, "Let's drive

Ford SVT Focus vs. Honda Civic Si, VW GTI

It was the Desert Fox himself, Erwin Rommel, who once said, "The desert can do strange and terrible things to a man." Or maybe that was Bob Hope. Or Bob Bondurant.
Whatever, that would explain why it is that our hearty and largely stable crew went straight-up paranoid during this comparison test of hot-rod hatchbacks. Well, it would explain it if not for the fact that the paranoia set in well before we began tripping over California high-desert brush.
It started at the airport in Detroit when a representative from Honda, which builds one of the cars in this comparison test, stole our boarding passes. Playfulness or sabotage? Why would he not want us to board that plane? He returned them to us, but then curiously took the flight to Los Angeles with us. Coincidence? No company would be so bold as to try to influence the decision of our unimpeachable staff with a bit of last-minute PR trickery, would it?
We were to test the current batch of hot-rodded hatchbacks. The Ford SVT Focus, the Honda Civic Si, and the Volkswagen GTI sell in minuscule numbers compared with, say, mid-size sedans—Honda expects to sell only about 12,000 to 18,000 of its new hatchback-only Civic Si and Ford's in-house tuner, SVT Engineering, will build just 7500 hopped-up Focuses.
Automakers see these inexpensive runabouts as their shot to capture more than just the money of young buyers. Acceptance by the kids gives a manufacturer a shot at a lifelong customer and casts a slightly more hip light on the rest of the company's cars. And if you just can't stomach a car on which the roof extends all the way from the windshield to its tail, there's a variety of like-priced, similarly performing cars with trunks (see "Budget Banditos," C/D, November 2001). We would have included in the test a 163-hp Mini Cooper S, but one was not available.
Sedated by several numbing hours of air travel, we relaxed. Or we did until we landed at LAX and a PR guy for Ford stepped out of the shadows and intercepted us before we could get to the baggage claim. Could this also have been a coincidence, arriving as he did utterly bedraggled, as if he'd just driven across the continent nonstop? And what was the message of his leaving a neon-pink plastic-skeleton key fob in the car we would drive? Was this a veiled threat?
No time to consider this as we had a date at an In-N-Out Burger stand just off the freeway to Palmdale, smack in the middle of freakin' Nowhereville, California. Then the topper. Luxuriating over a few Sprites in our Palmdale hotel's bar, we notice the place is filthy with Germans. They're everywhere—looking conspicuously, how should we say? German. Young ones. Attractive ones. Ostensibly, they are here to make a movie called My Daughter's Tears about a woman convicted of killing her child—your typical light-hearted German fare. But could this be anything but an elaborate plot on the part of Volkswagen (is it not German, too?) to sway our choices by the most prurient means.
Make no mistake. We shall not be swayed. (The German women were attractive, but sullen.) Ours is a resolve hewed and then thoroughly shot-peened through a lot more than a year of professional car testing and attendant creative indolence. We would test these cars on the racetrack. We would test them on mountain roads and on expressways and past the strip malls of the great country of California.
And we did so under the oddly reassuring cover of a B2 stealth bomber calmly gliding over us near El Mirage dry lake—looking like a triangular, flat-black hole in the sky. Duty drove us south. There we were free, my fellow Americans. There at La Casa del Zorro—yes, that's the name of a desert resort—we would find solace, solitude, and an Olympic-size lap pool. There we would define the new world order free of the clutches of the evildoers, or at least we'd pick a winner.

2008 Volkswagen R32

Informed observers see the R32 as an overpriced GTI or a bargain Audi TT, occupying an unmarketable limbo between the two. Spend some time with the R32, though, and it emerges as the best of both worlds: all the hatchback functionality of the GTI combined with the sweet engine and all-weather handling of the TT.
One tester described the R32 exhaust growl as Porsche-like, a comment that was met with universal approval. We even found ourselves tapping the steering-wheel-mounted paddle shifters up and down the gears just to hear the V-6 play a symphony throughout its rev range. And it’s not simply smooth-sounding: The R32 provides a gratifying, linear throttle response that even the most subtle of turbo fours cannot achieve.
Refinement is also the key inside the R32, which was acclaimed for its luxury appointments. Compared with the no-frills Evo, the R32 is loaded with features that we’ve come to expect from cars priced above 30 grand. The interior is nearly identical to the Rabbit and GTI’s, only with the added ’zazz of machined aluminum trim and “R” logos on the pedals. The gauges, highlighted by glowing blue needles, are the best in the group.
On the highway, the R32 is serene, wind and road noise are muted, and the seats are comfortable and supportive. And although the VW is down two doors on the Evo and STI, the back seat earned top marks for accepting two passengers with grace.
With 45 fewer horses than the second-most-powerful car here and a relatively meager 236 pound-feet of torque, it’s no surprise that the R32 is the slowest of the trio. We didn’t expect much from the handling, either, given the heavily siped all-season tires, but we were pleasantly surprised. Corner turn-in is sharp, and the even feel of the steering makes for easy midcorner corrections when they’re needed.
The suspension works well through corners and smooth roads but is flinty over bumps and rough pavement. Still, the R32 is a blast to drive. It’s only when the speeds climb and you start to push the boundaries of the R32’s limits that you come upon an edge that’s kind of ragged. In lesser circumstances, the R32 is as polished as a telescope mirror in almost every way.
Even its looks are the most sedate of the group. There are no wings or scoops; the R32 just goes about its business with a quiet confidence. It’s the car for the boy racer who has finally grown up. And speaking of grownups, two of our three-guy test crew admitted the R32 is the car they’d buy of this group. That could be due to the wisdom of increasing age, or maybe they’re getting soft. Either way, we like the R32.

2008 Subaru Impreza WRX STI

The reason for the STI’s third-place finish does not lie with its 5.0-second 0-to-60 time, which is 0.4 second slower than the Evo’s. To reach the mile-a-minute mark in the Subaru requires two gearshifts, which eat up precious 10ths. The STI’s acceleration is further hampered by a lack of low-end torque. The engine almost bogs below 4000 rpm, but at higher revs and full boost, the thrust is dizzying. The quarter-mile sprint between the STI and Evo is close enough that picking a winner in a rematch is basically a coin flip.
The super Subie does not lack for power, even if some of the performance numbers look deceptively slow. Where it falls down is in the steering department, which is too light and far too vague. Most annoyingly, the only feel conveyed through the steering wheel is in the form of kickback from road bumps.
That’s a shame because the STI has a lot going for it. Despite editor-in-chief Csere’s opinion that the STI wins the ugliest-car-on-the-planet contest, our test crew was smitten with the flared wheel arches, vents, and scoops, especially in side and rear profile. The interior also drew praise for its comfortable driving position and trim materials that inspire pride instead of apologies.
Around town and cruising on the highway, we find that Subaru delivers on the promise of a more refined and civil STI, but when the road turns all spaghetti-like, the STI comes up short. The aforementioned steering is the main culprit—it makes it difficult to figure out what’s going on at the wheels—even though the body motions are well controlled and the overall ride is the best in the group. The brakes, despite the best 70-to-0-mph stopping distance of 153 feet, lack feel as well. Both factors chip away at the driver’s confidence. Those still brave enough to push the STI will quickly discover understeer through almost any type of corner, and the many settings of the center differential don’t seem to offer a cure.
The STI is supremely capable, but we wish it were more inspiring away from the drag strip. It’s technically impressive, but the lack of driver involvement makes this Subaru a blunt tool.

2008 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution GSR

On paper, the Lancer Evolution looks like a slight underdog to the Impreza WRX STI because it has less horsepower and an almost-200-pound weight disadvantage. Normally, this is the part where we explain how the slower car is better to drive and thus becomes the ultimate winner. This time, though, the statistically obsessed can take comfort in the fact that the first-place car is quickest in a straight line, pulls the highest g on the skidpad, and costs less that its rivals. As a bonus, the Evo is the best car to drive of the three, which is what really matters. We constantly argue this point to the chagrin of some letter writers.
The Evo averages an astonishing 4.6 seconds from 0 to 60 mph. It might only beat the Subaru STI to that mark because the Evo can get there, just barely, in second gear, although it also holds a slight advantage through the quarter-mile, too. That’s despite ceding 10 horsepower and 192 pounds of curb weight to the STI.
The torque peak of the Evo occurs at a higher rpm than the STI’s, but the seat of our pants tells us the Evo has more torque at lower rpm. From a standstill, the STI can launch at the engine’s rev limiter, which tortures the clutch but gets it off the line explosively. The Evo, however, is limited to a more mechanically sympathetic 5000 rpm until the wheels are moving, and that low-end torque is what helps it overcome the initial launch advantage of the STI.
The Evolution’s engine starts pumping out usable propulsion at about 3000 rpm, and turbo lag is less noticeable with its smoother power delivery. It doesn’t have the exciting whoosh that’s present as the STI builds steam, but it’s much easier to live with. The engine is the Evo, although it’s not all rainbows and buttercups. The noise from under the hood sounds more like a blender than an internal-combustion engine, and smoothness on our preproduction test car was set closer to chop than liquefy.
The five-speed gearbox only contributes to the din—at 80 mph in fifth gear, the engine is buzzing at 3850 rpm. One test driver complained of a headache after 20 minutes of high-speed flogging. He’s a bit of a whiner, but engine and road noise are ever present in the Evo. Uncomfortable noise seems to bounce off the ceiling and hit your ears a second time.
Aside from the Recaro seats—they have deep side and thigh bolsters, plus shoulder bolsters—the Evo interior is only a step or two above rental-car banality. White stitching on the leather steering wheel and padded cloth on the door panels and center armrest break up the expanses of black plastic and save the Evo from total underachievement in this price bracket.
But let’s not dwell on the bad, because there is plenty of good about the Lancer Evolution. For starters, it clings to the road. We recorded 0.97 g on a slippery skidpad, fighting oversteer all the while. That’s right, oversteer. Most cars lose grip at the front end during a steady-state corner, but the electronic wizardry in the Evolution’s systems makes sure the back end is the first thing to gently break loose.
Since the skidpad only measures maximum lateral grip, it’s not a consistent indication of good handling, but in this case it’s perfectly in line with the over-the-road experience. The quick steering—2.3 turns lock-to-lock—offers more feel than that of the other cars. The stiff brake pedal is more communicative, too, and the brakes don’t ever seem to fade.
The Evolution inspires confidence in the way it goes over the road without event or drama or any strenuous amount of work from the driver. It’s predictable, it’s capable, and it’s more communicative than the competition. That lets you drive it harder and faster, so if you want to get somewhere in a hurry, the Lancer Evolution GSR is the best choice.

2009 Lamborghini Murciélago LP640

Celebrity has its price. Just ask Britney. (Or better, ask her hairdresser.) So it is with automotive celebrity. The joke about the arrest-me-red Ferrari is no joke.
Or, in this case, the arrest-me-icebox-white Lamborghini LP640. On the last day of our adventure, a mercenary California Highway Patrolman locked his Crown Vic onto the tail of the Lambo, weaving through traffic on I-5 as we headed toward L.A. He ignored the bright-red but less eye-catching ZR1 and Viper. Eventually, he must have thought, the rich bastard behind the wheel of the Lambo will stray 10 over and I’ll have the catch of the day. Good thing our Chipper didn’t bother to venture off to faraway high-desert roads, where all alone we’d ventured into triple-digit territory.
Actually, all of us might have accepted a night in the hoosegow in return for the pleasures of driving the Lambo in open country. The Murciélago may be nearing the end of its days, but it has aged as well as Elle Macpherson, and its body is at least as striking. The Lamborghini had people waving us down, craning their cell-phone cameras and going all gaga.
The interior is exquisitely done, too, mating quilted leather that looks as if it should be adorning haute couture jackets with lashings of solid aluminum pieces that are a joy to behold. Some of the ergonomics are a bit weird, and the aftermarket-looking Kenwood infotainment system is Byzantine in its operation, but it’s still a gorgeous cabin. Getting in and out is not for the aged, infirm, or miniskirted because the Murciélago is so low slung and you have to stoop at the same time to get past the scissors doors.
The Lambo didn’t win any prizes for its worst-in-test 166-foot stopping distance from 70 mph, its hard ride on freeways, its 10-mpg rate of gobbling fuel, or its penchant to refuse luggage. But it is the most visceral and exciting car here. The 6.5-liter V-12 makes a fantastic mélange of exhaust and induction noise, a note that varies from a bellow to a wail depending on where you are in the rev range. And the noise starts at about 3000 rpm and doesn’t stop until a lofty 8500. The e-gear transmission—a single-clutch automated manual—makes some troubling clunks and groans, but the shifts are supremely quick.
On a track, the Lambo—the second-heaviest here—feels a bit ponderous. It plows on corner entry unless you lift off the gas, when the tail swings around suddenly to remind you that there’s a large lump of metal behind. On the road, it’s a different deal. The steering is well weighted, the brakes are superb, and the car has an ability to float over bumps at high speed. It just flows along the twisties to the extent that one driver noted: “Oh, my God—perhaps the best 20 miles I have ever driven.”
So why didn’t the Murciélago win? After all, it is the quickest of the pack in a straight line, gets a solid 1.0 g on the skidpad, and is the most thrilling and involving car to drive. The answer lies here: price as tested, $440,460. That’s an enormous pile of dough, although a half-hour on California Route 33 into Ojai might convince you it may even be worth it.

2010 Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG Black Series

Once upon a time, we thought AMG built the sporty versions of cars wearing the three-pointed Mercedes star. But if one wants a really hard-core Mercedes, then the Black Series is the place to look.
First came the Euro-only SLK55 AMG Black Series, followed by the $140,000 CLK63 AMG Black Series, a rorty street racer that had the attitude and exhaust note of a German Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM) race car. It went on sale in the U.S. late in 2007. The third Black Series car is the SL65, all $304,350 worth of it. Besides the carbon-fiber body parts, the additional power, and the suspension changes, AMG’s engineers retuned some of the SL65’s software in an attempt to give the car a sportier mien.
The five-speed manumatic transmission now has four settings, adding a second manual mode (M2) to the previous lineup of comfort, sport, and manual. Mercedes says the M2 mode has shifts that are 20-percent quicker than the M1 setting. The tranny also features a rev-matching function on downshifts. The stability-control system differs from the standard SL65’s, featuring three settings: on, sport, and off. The sport setting is new and allows additional leeway before the electronics intervene. Even with the system switched off, pressing the brake pedal hard enough will temporarily reengage the stability control.
Opinion was divided about the SL’s styling. It certainly stands out, with its bulging, flared fenders and incredibly aggressive front fascia, but some of our test drivers saw the car as cartoonishly styled. The interior mimics the SL65’s except for a smaller-diameter steering wheel with manual paddle shifters, a reworked instrument panel that has a lap-timing function, and carbon-fiber trim pieces.
It’s a sumptuous, elegant cabin that’s beautifully made and expensive-looking, as you’d expect in a car this pricey. It’s a fine daily driver, but trunk space is compromised by a pair of actuators for the rear wing, which pops up 4.8 inches above the decklid at speeds above 75 mph.
The Black Series is wickedly fast, although the extra power is offset somewhat by its 4220-pound weight. It’s the heaviest car in the test, albeit 274 pounds lighter than the last SL65 we tested. It’s as quick to 60 mph as the Viper and the Corvette, placed second (tied with the Corvette) in the standing quarter, and was second best in braking.
On the street, the midrange acceleration of the Black Series is akin to a religious experience, accompanied by a turbo whoosh that’s a little disappointing compared with the fabulous exhaust notes of the Corvette and the Lamborghini. The SL has a remarkably capable and relatively comfortable way of gobbling up back roads, but it’s always a little insulated from the blacktop—the brake pedal and the steering are a bit numb, and the manual gearshifts are slow. Turn the stability control off, and the SL turns into a tire-smoking beast, but the chassis is actually quite benign.
Mercedes is only building 350 Black Series SL65s, of which 175 are destined for the U.S. It’s an impressive car, but it lacks ultimate involvement. And, boy, is it expensive, at more than $300,000

2009 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1

What?! Those idiots at Car and Driver picked the ZR1 to win?
We can see the hate mail already. But look through the results, and it will become apparent that the Corvette provides an awful lot of what the Lamborghini offers for nearly a fourth of the price.
The ZR1 gets a stellar 1.07 g on the skidpad, best in the test. At 141 feet, its stopping distance from 70 mph is 11 feet shorter than the SL65’s. It returns the best EPA city gas mileage, but at 14 mpg, nobody’s bragging. The ZR1 isn’t quite as swift off the line as the Murciélago, but its superior power-to-weight ratio pays off at the top end because it records an identical 0-to-140-mph time of 14.0 seconds.
As a daily driver, it has the most supple freeway ride, providing the driver puts the adjustable shocks in the “tour” setting. The trunk is easily the most commodious, and the Corvette is on a par with the Mercedes for control layout and ergonomics. Indeed, we think the navigation system is more intuitive and easier to use than the SL’s.
The LS9 engine is magnificent, if not quite as operatic and smooth as the Lambo’s V-12. There is a tidal wave of power from almost zero revs, accompanied by supercharger whine and a guttural V-8 growl. This is a Guns N’ Roses soundtrack compared with the Lambo’s Verdi, but we’re catholic in our taste in automotive music. A long-throw throttle pedal gives precise control over all that horsepower. The manual shifter is pleasing to use, too.
The brakes are strong and disciplined, with terrific pedal feel. This top-of-the-line Corvette is just amazing on a racetrack, providing the driver is fond of tail-out antics. Where the Viper has tons of rear-end grip, the Corvette dances around the front wheels in a progressive, easily modulated manner. The steering is livelier than that of other Corvettes and loads up nicely with cornering forces, although it lacks the delicious connectedness of the Lambo’s. The ZR1 is plenty fast along sinuous mountain roads, but the fat tires like to follow the road’s imperfections, as in the Viper, which can become wearing after a while.
There are reasons why the ZR1 is so much cheaper than the Lambo and the SL65, however. Our test car came with the optional full-leather interior that makes for a vast improvement over the stock cabin. But it still looks chintzy, especially in this company. The seats are too thin under thighs and butt, a complaint we have voiced umpteen times.
It also doesn’t look that exotic—no matter how many slats and vents and carbon-fiber components Chevy has added to the exterior—because there are so many Corvettes on the road. The C6 shape is pretty enough, but it’s not very dramatic in this group. And, generally, when people spend more than $100,000 on a car, they’re looking to make a statement.
Overall, though, Chevy has made a car that is truly thrilling to drive, performs with the world’s best, and harnesses extreme performance with everyday drivability. And the company has done so for a price that undercuts its foreign competition—in this test, by $187,830 and $323,940. The ZR1’s sticker is high for a Corvette, true enough, but it shows that when GM is able to charge the kind of money German automakers such as Porsche can command, it can make a truly great car. Someone might inform the dim bulbs in Washington that some segments of GM are working quite well, thank you very much. http://caranddriver.com