Jace to Face

DON'T SELL VOLVO TO THE CHINESE!

Thank you. That is all.

I think the last-generation BMW 5 series sedan was one of the best looking cars of all time. It isn't pretty, isn't sexy; it's 1000% handsome - every line just right. I have less positive things to say about the current 5. It's ugly. Only its proportions are correct; everything else sucks. Even the M5 is a piss poor thing to behold.


Right on the horizon though, there's a new 5er coming. Based on a shortened 7-series platform, the new 5 promises to undo the wayward curves imposed by ex design chief Chris Bangle and impose more reason and order on the mid-range Bimmer. It will be - I promise - better, even if marginally. Despite having talked about the new car's looks like I know what I'm on about, any information about the design isn't really concrete. Unless you're on the inside, all we know is what spy pictures of pre-production models indicate and what the odd loose-lipped executive has let slip. And one more thing. A future 5 has already debuted, a newbie in the model range called the 5 series GT. It's BMW's effort at a crossover that is two parts coupe and one part SUV (or, in BMW speak, SAV for Sports Activity Vehicle...), and it's a controversial thing, especially for the American market. Ignoring the strange proportions, the basic design theme for the GT, both inside and out, is an encouraging hint for the more traditional sedan and wagon debuting next year. Those proportions, though...



I love a good hatchback. Unlike most of my fellow countrymen, I like the way a good, aggressive hot hatch looks. I love the practicality. I love the equal measure of committment toward serious and fun. I even love a wagon every now and again (the XC70 and Subaru Legacy are fine-looking things and are eager to play ball with even the most outdoorsy among us). This new BMW though - I'm not sure what to think. I gagged initially and thought it looked awful. Now, though, I'm not so sure. If I'm ever looking to buy a 5 series - and one day I might well be - I wonder if I'd roll out of Global Imports BMW in one of these.

It's certainly the most controversial car of the moment. The $400,000 Lexus LF-A supercar. Appeared as a concept many years ago, then again, and yet again with moderate stylistic alterations. Now, it's a production reality. Five-hundred examples.


It's not what I thought it would be. I saw that it had showed up at Tokyo, and I was immediately consumed in a nervous panic - years of built-up anticipation felt in full force. This subsided immediately when I saw the pictures of the production model, giving way to confusion and some disappointment. The real LF-A is much less graceful than the concept and much uglier. It's also much more expensive than predicted, by nearly a factor of two. I didn't expect these things. Nor did I expect it to be as racy as it is. The V10, developed with Yamaha, has an astonishing 9,000 rpm redline, and long before the needle hits the big 9, the car is spewing fantastically loud and brutal noises from under the hood and out the back. It's not all noise, either. It's zero to sixty in 3.7 seconds and is claimed to round the 'Ring in 7:24, a second faster than the Ferrari Enzo.

So it's $400,000 fast. (GT-R fanatics can talk to me when Nissan fits it with a transmission that doesn't explode and a Launch Control that doesn't invalidate the warranty). It's $400,000 exclusive. But it isn't $400,000 beautiful...or sexy...or brutal. It looks like a Supra grew up a bit. It's lost those kickass taillights from the concept and any finesse that may have graced the front end. Really, the only aesthetic compliments I have go for the interior, which is spectacular, and the side scoop at the window line that comes straight from the concept. The triple exhaust configuration is cool too. Ultimately though, the styling is a terrible letdown. As impressive as the LF-A's numbers and vocalizations are, the absence of art in the execution may prove damning. I don't doubt the production run will sell. Five-hundred rich people would buy a piece of poo at half a million dollars each if Porsche sold it. I just doubt that the racy Lexus will end up occupying sacred space among the automotive greats, and it's a real pity that it may have missed it by a margin so tiny as its appearance, especially when the concepts showed so much promise. It's doubly tragic because it's high time a Japanese manufacturer made a wholehearted attempt at this exclusive club, and Lexus is really the only reasonable contender.

There is some silver lining, though; some good news. The LF-A seems to be, on the whole, excellent so long as you don't actually look at the outside. This is the first production evidence since the Lexus IS-F and the most compelling indicator so far that Toyota is serious about putting some balls back in their cars. And this is good news because Toyota is enormous and influential, and the world will be a better place if Toyota can hit the sweet spot among build quality, greenness, good value, excitement, and sex appeal. For my part, I hope they find it.

This is another supercar post (two in a row, in fact) following my angry rant against their kind. Yes, I still think dumping four-hundred grand on a car is ridiculous. But I'll be honest: I like the LF-A. I'm somehow more impressed by it than disappointed. Weird, I know, and hardly explicable. On that bombshell...

For anyone who follows cars much (or Top Gear), this car will already be familiar to you:

Otherwise, you're probably just now meeting the Gumpert Apollo for the first time. Hello, how d'ya do, etc. You're thinking it, I know. It looks like a huge turd! Yes, and it's a colossally expensive one, starting at about $450,680 at the current EUR to USD conversion rate. Fortunately, it's also a very fast one. The Gumpert may look a bit daft, but it's got legs. It sits atop the Top Gear Power Board and recently lapped the Nurburgring's Nordeschleife in 7:11:57. For the unlearned, this is either the record for a production car or very close to it. It's beyond fast. For comparison's sake, the Ferrari Enzo does a 7:25, the Porsche Carrera GT a 7:28. If you're a Bugatti Veyron fan, that does a 7:40. This is fairly astonishing considering Gumpert is a miniscule company next to these hypercar powerhouses. The man behind it all used to be an engineer at Audi, and it's their excellent 4.2 liter V8 that sits in the Apollo. Admittedly, they skimped on the styling and creature comforts for the interior, but I'm not actually convinced it looks all that bad. Actually, I don't think the Enzo looks all that good, nor the Veyron.

This all comes hot off the heels of my rant against supercars, which is fine. I blame ADHD. Fact is, I love the ugly duckling Dumpert. If I squint, it's almost handsome, so it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that I might think it attractive after I've had a bit to drink. It's raw and noisy - too rough and obscene for poseurs, too brutal for amateurs. If I had to buy or be shot, it's the supercar I'd choose.

Let me preface this by saying that I love cars. I'm a fan, as in fanatic. I'm obsessed. I would sooner spend a wild night with a good car than Kate Beckinsale. This will be relevant a few paragraphs down.

Automotive shouty man Jeremy Clarkson recently blogged on supercars. You can read his thoughts here.

For the most part, I agree with Clarkson on this front. I'm glad supercars exist. They are an assault to the ears, a feast for the eyes, and a riot to drive. I must be clear: they're rarely good cars, but the greatest of them maintain a level of stupidity and ridiculousness that make them legendary. I found further common ground with J.C. when he says that the Audi R8 is probably the lone vehicle sitting at the intersection of good car and supercar. It's the only one that does damn near everything you could ask of a road car...and does it well.

So I'm glad we have supercars to ogle at, to fondle, to lust over, but I really can't see the point of owning one. In fact, I'll take a more aggressive position and admit I'll judge any supercar owner...and not favorably. What owners of these cars have done is spend generally in wild excess of a hundred thousand dollars on a car. Lamborghini Reventon owners have spent $1.6 million for their exotic blend of carbon fiber, aluminum, and gasoline. Aston Martin One-77 owners have spent at least $1.7 million on each example of that piece. It's worse than stupid. It's approaching shameful.

Starting with stupid: men who buy supercars are generally thinking with their penis instead of their brains. A Ferrari Enzo cannot perform better on a public road than a $30 thousand Golf R32. In fact, it'll probably do worse. Show an Enzo a speed bump and you'll see that zero-to-sixty times are irrelevant in the real world. Same is true of potholes. Roll a Lamborghini down tenth street here in Atlanta. You'd dislocate every joint in your body and every body panel on the car. And don't bitch to me about fun-to-drive factor. I'd have at least as much fun in a Focus RS because I'm happy with the size of my manhood and don't need to compensate by having people worship my car. Also, at $30k I could replace my whole car for cheaper than it'd cost Lamborghini man to replace those missing body panels. The Focus RS is a good car...a total package. It's a quarter the price of an R8 and just about as good.

Now it gets intense:

Your stereotypical Republican will forever say that people with money should be able to spend their hard-earned greenbacks however they like. From a governmental standpoint, I more or less agree; I don't think Uncle Sam should get too involved on that front. In every other respect though, a man's attitude toward money speaks volumes about his character. What he spends his money on - or more inclusively, puts his money toward - is enormously important. A $150,000 R8? A $1.2 million Bugatti Veyron? This is clearly the property of an individual purposefully ignorant of reality - intentionally blind to the human condition and by extension, willfully disrespectful toward the Divine. The Las Vegas Strip, Buckhead, Monaco...these little dream worlds with their ritzy venues and endless exotic cars...the rest of planet Earth doesn't look, sound, or feel like these. The people that put their money towards keeping their personal fantasy lands rolling? Helluva shame.

I've recently logged some hours on Youtube (recent medical studies indicate a correlation between excessive Internet use and depression, by the way). I've been watching The Long Way Round, a television documentary featuring Ewan McGregor and his best bud Charlie Boorman as they try to circle the globe on two BMW R1150 GS Adventure motorcycles.

I'd just like to gush about how much I want to do this: to go from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, or Britain to Singapore, or Norway to South Africa. Do some intense preparation, hop on badass bikes, meet new people, and undertake a grand adventure with some mates. I know it will be unimaginable difficult in practice - the TV show reinforces that frequently and very dramatically, but I can't resist the romance of the idea. This is something I definitely intend to pursue - a big life goal.

As a hybrid, absolutely not. I'm staunchly opposed to those things. With an ordinary gasoline or diesel powertrain, hellz yeah!