Motoring Con Brio

Good track day performers, part two

•May 11, 2011 • 6 Comments

Here’s the second (and arguably least interesting) segment of our three-part look at good track day performers— specifically, modern cars where practicality is of minimal object.

You can find the introductory post (with all the boring stipulations and so on) and part one of the list here.

Lotus Elise:

Porsche Cayman/Cayman S. The classic all-pro athlete:

Z4 M Coupe. A twitchy, tricky handler perhaps, but entertainingly so:

Mustang GT (2005-present). Think what you will of these cars, one can’t help but be impressed with what Ford has done to this aging franchise star starting from about the mid-aughts.

Honda S2000. A car we admire the heck out of, if not quite love:

MX-5 Miata. Initially debated whether or not to put this here but decided it would be unfair not to, given its oft-cited status as the ‘most raced car’ (or something to that effect) in the US (if not the world). Plus we suspect the backlash would have been fierce had we not 🙂

Corvette (C5). In all honesty, probably our least favorite car here, if not on the entire site. But for sheer performance value for the dollar, it deserves a spot on this list— you see a bunch of these at track days for a reason. And with a good aftermarket exhaust, they sound absolutely bonkers. They will tear your auditory system a new one.

Let us know what else you think deserves to be on this particular list (again, modern cars where practicality is of minimal object).

The third and final part to follow.

Posted in Still images, What would you buy
Tags: bmw, corvette, ford, honda, lotus, miata, porsche

What are some good track day performers…

•May 10, 2011 • 31 Comments

that are pleasurable to own (e.g., high pride in ownership factor)
that can conceivably be daily driven (albeit with varying levels of practicality)
that are not exotic or ‘collectible’, and thus have a low or somewhat low barrier for entry (ruling out, e.g., Ferraris, rare or higher-end Porsches and the like)
that are not kit cars or other such purpose-built cars (ruling out, e.g., Caterham Sevens and the like)
where “good track day performer” can be loosely defined to mean a street car that is particularly enjoyable to drive [non-competitively] on a race track, and doesn’t feel discombobulated or unhappy going through corners. Grand tourers (including some we really like, such as, say, the BMW E9) have been excluded (or attempted to be excluded) for this reason

And if not right out of the box, then after a moderate amount of modification that enhances (possibly even greatly enhances) but doesn’t completely alter the original nature and intent of the car?

We have loosely grouped this fun exercise into three categories (and are mindful of the fact that they aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive):

classics or near-classics (e.g., cars you might expect to find on BaT),
modern cars where practicality is of minimal object, and
modern cars where practicality (grocery-getting, people-hauling, etc.) is indeed something of an object

This list is far from conclusive, of course, as well as somewhat arbitrary. Nor should all of these cars be considered equal— some will clearly be superior performers to others. But for a track car – either as a second (or third) car or as a daily driver – one could do worse than any of these. That’s what we think, anyway.

This is part one.

944/968 (944 shown):

914-6:

911, 1974-1988 (impact bumper era, i.e., the lowest barrier for entry):

2002/E21/E30 (2002 shown):

GTV:

GTV6:

Datsun 510:

Datsun 240Z:

MR2 (first or second generation, although first (~~W10~~ AW11) is shown):

RX-7 (any generation, although second (FC) is shown):

Ur-quattro:

Honorable mention— Audi 4000CS quattro, which we think would make a very unique alternative to the Ur-quattro (itself a unique car that one rarely sees anymore). Sadly, these are probably all but impossible to find now (clean ones, anyway):

Let us know what else you think deserves to be on this particular list (classics or near-classics).

Parts two and three to follow.

Posted in Still images, What would you buy
Tags: alfa romeo, audi, bmw, datsun, mazda, porsche, toyota

Assorted grab bag of stuff we like

•May 9, 2011 • 6 Comments

Getting right to it..

Posted in Grab bag, Still images
Tags: aston martin, audi, bmw, bugatti, ferrari, ford, lotus, mercedes-benz, porsche, renault, volvo

Wet laps at the Glen

•May 6, 2011 • 1 Comment

One more self-indulgent clip before we return to our regularly-scheduled programming. Have a good one!

Posted in Circuits, Motoring con brio, Moving images
Tags: cobra, cts-v, d-type, golf, gti, hpde, jaguar, mk5, mkv, track day, volkswagen, vw, watkins glen

Moment of zen: Motoring Con Brio edition

•May 5, 2011 • 8 Comments

Running with some blue chip sports cars recently at the Glen! An inspired session, even if our line is sloppy.

Posted in Circuits, Moment of zen, Motoring con brio, Moving images
Tags: cayman, cobra, golf, gt3, gti, hpde, mk5, mkv, nsx, porsche, track day, volkswagen, vw, watkins glen

Gone fishin’

•April 29, 2011 • 7 Comments

Going offline for a bit, so please enjoy this early grab bag— we’ll be back in a week. Happy motoring!

Posted in Grab bag, Still images
Tags: alfa romeo, ariel, atom, audi, bmw, citroën, ferrari, ford, honda, lamborghini, mazda, mercedes-benz, porsche, subaru, volkswagen, vw

Part two (“Bordeaux / Biarritz”) of the 2011 Tour Auto as captured by lensman Amaury Laparra

•April 28, 2011 • 8 Comments

Getting right to it.

Imagine looking in your rear-view mirror to find this. Insane!

Posted in Lifestyle, Still images
Tags: 2011, 2011 tour auto, alfa romeo, biarritz, bmw, bordeaux, ferrari, ford, france, jaguar, lancia, mercedes-benz, renault, tour auto

Holy smokes

•April 27, 2011 • 5 Comments

Amaury and co. over at the Asphalt Heritage Club once again produce the equivalent of photographic gold! We want to know if Amaury pulled the equivalent of a Robert Johnson for his way around a lens— he’s just that good.

Oh, and these shots come from the 2011 Tour Auto (where the Club was, according to Amaury, “not ‘concurrents’ but ‘press affiliated’, [which meant] the same roadbook as the true drivers but with more liberties”), but that bit of minutia seems to be of secondary (or tertiary, or quaternary) importance in the face of these characteristically stunning shots. One could make the (wrong-headed) argument that getting keepers at the Tour Auto is like shooting fish in a barrel, but that’s simply not true. An enormous amount of thought about light and composition (the two most important things about good photography, in that order) has been put into the making of these images, however effortless the photographer makes it look.

Posted in Lifestyle, Still images
Tags: 2011 tour auto, alfa romeo, aston martin, bmw, ferrari, ford, france, jaguar, lancia, paris, porsche, renault, tour auto, zagato

Revelation: cheap, buzzy econoboxes can be fun to drive (given the right conditions..)

•April 27, 2011 • 8 Comments

We were fortunate enough to spend some time (alas, not nearly enough) in the French West Indies recently, where we had the pleasure of renting a – wait for it – Hyundai i10 for getting around. A Hyundai what? An i10, which is apparently a “city car” sold in markets other than continental North America. Wikipedia notes that city cars are referred to as “subcompacts” in North America, but then proceeds to list cars like the Ford Fiesta and Honda Fit as examples thereof; we’ll counter that the i10 and other such city cars we saw make these subcompacts look positively luxurious.

But we digress. Being North Amurricans, we’ve never had the opportunity to get behind the wheel of one of these— city cars, that is. While we have had the pleasure of doing quite a bit of traveling in Europe, much of it has, for better or worse, heretofore been by rail. With no such option on these islands, we would have little choice but to call to duty the cheapest rental we could find. And you know what? Much to our pleasant surprise, we digged it. Oh sure, the buzzy and overwhelmed motor, tall seating position and center of gravity (they don’t make ’em long, so they make ’em tall), and skinny 70-profile tires on 13″ wheels (we checked) aren’t exactly what you’d call the makings of a sporty vehicle— but to dismiss a car as the mere sum of its parts would be to miss the point, not least of all in these conditions.

What we discovered, perhaps for the very first time (as it pertains to motoring, anyway), is that context is key, and in this particular context of narrow, winding roads on an exceptionally small, hilly Caribbean land mass, with oncoming island traffic on one side, and turquoise blue waters on the other? Brilliant. We loved beating on the motor in first every chance we got, not to mention testing the adhesion limits of those skinny tires and chirping them on corner exit (although the somewhat scary – and altogether real – possibility of rollover pulled us back from chucking its sub-1000kg into corners too hard). So yes— cheap, buzzy econoboxes evidently do have their place in fun driving, although that place decidedly isn’t, say, I-95, or I-70.

Which leads us to our second revelation— as far as small subcompacts go, one could do a lot worse than a Suzuki Swift. We have always been familiar with these cars but this marks our first time seeing them in the metal. Alas, they are slotted above the i10 so we didn’t get to try one, but we certainly wouldn’t mind springing for one on a future visit. You just know it’s going to be a fun little car based on how it looks— little wonder they’re used in cup racing and the like. Hat tip to IEDEI for first calling this one.