Ferrari F12 Berlinetta VIdeo Review By Autocar

F12 in Monaco. Photo: Axis

I've been waiting for this one...

The Ferrari F12 Berlinetta is a car that has to be seen in person to fully appreciate.  Getting to drive it, well,  I admit... a bit jealous!

New M3 delivery

One of the great perks of being a snarky motoring journalist aside from say... getting to drive the odd Porsche RS Spyder, must be getting early deliveries of hot new cars you might have ordered. Let's live vicariously though Autocar's Chris Harris and these two videos of his brand new white BMW M3.

The first clip reminds me of Stee. He is just that way, when he sets his mind on something it has to be "just so"!

The second one reminds me of when CG and I were at the 'ring except with better tires and a cheaper car. Even though I suspect editing on the camera friendly powerslide moments, hats off to Harris for having the honesty to admit he actually left the DSC on and for recording a very track-tard like review of the new M3...

NOTE: Apparently Vimeo is having some issues today, if the clips do not work try reloading the page or checking in later. Sorry for the inconvenience.


E92 M3 Delivery from Axis on Vimeo.


New M3 at the Nürburgring from Axis on Vimeo.

Holy Smoke!

Let's take a break from the depressing Formula 1 debacle, here is an entertaining video by the guys at Autocar: the 10 best drivers cars of 2007.

There are some odd choices included in the test (and yes I cut one of them out as just too boring) but that's cool enough, after having briefly driven a Mercedes C350 Sport I do agree that it's quite a nice handling car.

The conclusions leave me a little perplexed, sure 4WD is easier in the rain but to conclude that the 997 is "C-R-A-P" on a wet track says more about your driving "usefulness" than the car. Stee and I were both schooled by CG driving at Watkins Glen in the wet on shaved Toyo RA1... we could not keep up with his 997S at all, especially coming out of corners.

The cars in the test are

• Mercedes Benz SLK55 Black
• Ford Mondeo (that's the one I spared you)
• Mercedes Benz C350
  
• BMW M3 (e92, V8)
• Porsche Cayman S
  
• Lamborghini LP640
• Porsche 997 GT3
• Lotus 2-eleven
• Audi R8
  

Hey, in the end, it is just a bunch of guys talking cars at the bar like many of us would and the trashing of the SLK55 black is pretty funny. It's all good and Chris Harris has just the right amount of entertaining smugness while still convincing you he is still an actual car guy, not a pod.

Finally, say what you will about the new e92 M3, but without those magnificent, Wagnerian tire smoking powerslides you would have had no video here!

(ps they made a mistake on the graphics at the end...the MB c350 did NOT, repeat did not come in 3rd in wet track times, it's good but it's not THAT good!)

The patron saint of tracktards?

When you have a few minutes look at this interview with Jonathan Palmer, what he says about track days is gospel. We have been saying the same for some time but of course we have neither the resources nor the knowhow to follow a business model which I do not believe has been quite realized or even explored in quite the same way in the US. Motor Sport Vision is an extremely impressive operation and I perhaps a better model than the "country club" one spreading around on this side of the pond.

But back to the interview. Interesting, given the need for more tracks and the difficulty of their coexistence in an increasingly dense housing environment, are the comments about noise. Noise is an issue on tracks we know well, Lime Rock for one. The trend, pushed by EU legislation, for manufactures to engineer what essentially will become "personal sound environments" within the cockpit is...disturbing, yet probably helpful to the future of our hobby and sport. In an interview for High-Performance Driving magazine, circuit designer Alan Wilson brings up precisely the same point. And though I'm sure someone would always find a way to complain, maybe because too many bugs are being slaughtered by cars driving on track, I think Audi proved with the R10 that one need not be noisy to be fast.

Interview by Chris Harris, Autocar

New M3 not good enough for "the internets"!

Below is the first intelligent sum up of the new 2008 M3 I have seen, courtesy of Autocar.

Unbelievable is the amount of belly aching and whining I have been reading about this new car on message boards:
"First E92M3 test figures, dissapointing..."writes one noted poster complaining that one magazine clocked the M3 at a measly 4.4 sec 0-60.

Never mind that the quoted article goes on to say that "The surface wasn’t ideal, however, and we expect even better numbers once we get one to our usual test track." A good example of why reading internet message boards can make you stupid.

Lots of opinion seems to be given without any hard data....we like data.

Anyway, for some reasonable, intelligent opinion...

Supercars: one more reason to consider a career in journalism.

Autocar's Chris Harris is really turning into a mini-Tiff....ok, he'll never be as cool as Tiff "Stig-that-in-your-pipe-and-smoke-it"Needell but I still want his job or at least the job of whoever is actually driving the cars in the clip!

here, from Autocar's excellent podcast.

Porsche RS Spyder test: another reason to consider a career in journalism.

From Autocar's very nice podcasts, Chris Harris gets to test a Porsche RS Spyder on the Weissach test track. And while I'm still scratching my head over his "getting some kind of precision understeer through here..." comment, he does seem to be flogging it pretty hard: 2.5 g lateral and 250km/h is no sunday drive.

Nice little plug for ChaseCam too at the end, too bad they did not have a Traqmate to go along with the cameras.



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