Men Free Blog

When it was first unveiled, the Volkswagen New Beetle’s only mission in life was to emulate and modernize the look of the classic air-cooled Bug that was so popular in America during the ’60s and ’70s. The New Beetle’s first restyling was so minor that you’d be forgiven for not even knowing it had been changed. Not so for the next update, a hardtop of which is due for the 2010 model year with a convertible following one year later. Such ergonomic deficiencies as a huge expanse between the driver and the windshield were acceptable in order to get the look right the first time around, but not any longer. Therefore, expect to see some radical changes for the cute little Bugger that will make what Volkswagen’s own Walter De’ Silva calls “a much more mature product.” The word “mature” doesn’t quite jive with the current New Beetle, so we’re pretty interested to see how far this redesign will go.

Audi made a bit of a splash earlier this year with the announcement that the new-for-’09 S3 would be available in either the three-door style or the more practical Sportback five-door hatch. Equipped with a high-pressure 2.0-liter turbo engine with 265-horsepower and 258 lb-ft of torque, the S3 can scoot to sixty in just 5.5 seconds, all while getting nearly 30 miles per gallon. Making the most of that power is the firm’s new seven-speed twin-clutch S-Tronic gearbox, which we’ve had nothing but good things to say about in its past six-speed incarnation. That gearbox will command a £1,450 premium over the standard manual transmission for our European friends. That price will also include twin steering wheel-mounted paddle shifters, another first for the S3. Total cost for the three-door stands at £28,920, while £29,420 will get you an S3 with Sportback. Of course, Quattro all-wheel drive comes standard on both. Sadly, the whole S3 package is available only in Europe.

Volkswagen is set to debut a mid-engine concept at this year’s LA Auto Show, and an Audi R3 derivative that could replace the TT is reportedly also being considered. With Porsche’s increased stake in VAG, it was just a matter of time before rumors of sharing this mid-engine platform between VW, Audi and Porsche began to surface, and a new model destined to slot in below the Boxster is the obvious conclusion.

Once again, CAR is leading the speculative charge, with sources suggesting that Porsche will use the mid-engine architecture to revive the 356 marque – not the 914 moniker – to create a baby Boxster priced around £20,000-35,000 and produced in very small numbers.

Unlike the stillborn Audi R4, the R3 and its Porsche sibling wouldn’t encroach on Boxster sales due to their limited availability. Fixed roof and convertible versions of both models are planned, but engine choices would be limited to turbocharged four-cylinders displacing between 1.2- and 2.0-liters and ranging in output from 105 hp to 280 hp. Diesel variants could also be offered in the Audi, but Quattro all-wheel-drive wouldn’t be part of package due to weight and friction penalties.

It’s a very compelling proposition, particularly since the new architecture is reportedly being developed to accept everything from electric drivetrains to hybrids, and with a curb weight around 2,200 pounds. But don’t expect anything to come to market until 2012 or 2013 at the earliest, assuming that Porsche doesn’t get cold feet and kills off the project before it leaves the drawing board.

As we all know, there are supercars, and then… there’s the Lamborghini Murcielago LP640. It has been called old and overweight, it has been called impractical and overpriced, it has been called out for its propensity to make 10-year-old boys lick its windows. When we got word that the LP640 would be stopping by the Autoblog Garage for a weekend, it was our chance to see if the childhood dream was still potent enough to answer adult desires. We’ve driven the Bugatti Veyron, Bentley Continental GT Speed, Porsche GT2, Corvette ZR1, Dodge Viper ACR and even Lambo’s own Gallardo LP560, and they were showstoppers. But when we finally met this Lambo, we had only one thing to say: Great googlymoogly!

We should admit right now that we bring a bit of baggage along with this review, having fallen for this particular filament in the automotive tacklebox back when Jimmy Carter ruled the free world. If you don’t get Lamborghini and the LP640, we understand, and we’re sure there is some other variety of automotive sculpture out there that can center your Ch’i.

However, if you do get the Lamborghini, if its geometries, its girth, its pursuit of speed and the next gas station resonates with you — as it has with us way back to the Countach — then there is nothing further to say. The car is a statement and a tome unto itself.

The theme song for the LP640 should be that old Morris Albert chestnut, “Feelings, nothing more than feelings,” because that’s all this car is about. When you’re standing in front of it — towering over it, rather — it’s got you by the transverse colon, or not at all. The engine noise has been designed to commandeer your auditory canal. Every impression, dent, dip, or divot in the road is registered in your viscera. Drive over so much as a piece of lint and you can guess the material and thread count.

The LP640 isn’t what we would call comfortable. We spent hours at a time in the car and it didn’t bother us, but that’s because we don’t mind driving a race car on the street when that race car is an LP640. But there is no mommy-make-it-stop comfort button. In fact, there’s a Sport button, which we never pressed because we don’t go by the name “Gimp”.

The LP640 isn’t exactly luxurious by the standards of comparable supercars. The doors don’t have much hydraulic assist, so you’ll need to help them get all the way up every single time. The leather and alcantara lined carbon buckets are light on the lining, heavy on the carbon. Whereas the Gallardo’s center console is filled with all sorts of toggles and buttons, the LP640 is frippery-free. The LP640 doesn’t even have the Gallardo’s backup camera, and if there were ever a candidate for a reversing aid, it’s the Murcielago.

Five buttons to the left of the steering wheel are for the lights and to engage Reverse. The climate control — no dual-zone nonsense here — is just a few more buttons. And the lower console has a few controls for utilitarian things like pulling the mirrors in, turning off the traction control, and opening the gas cap. That’s it.

The trunk up front is good for a small, soft-sided bag and a few gnats. The interior of the car has room for an iPhone, a Blackberry, and maybe an envelope. The passenger seat is the largest holdall in the car, known to be good for more than one supermodel at a time… if your name is Bruce Wayne.

The LP640 isn’t exactly pleasant to drive slowly. From one mile per hour up to about 15, the minimally-servoed steering and massive front wheels make it practically like piloting a small U-Haul. The eGear, save for the beautiful and perfectly placed paddles, is regrettable. If you have to make a couple of pull-slowly-into-traffic moves, the clutch responds with “I’ll do it, but I won’t like it.” Heaven forbid you get an extended taste of LA’s rush hour creeping. The eGear shifts in milliseconds, but under duress the time it takes for the clutch to re-engage and get power going again feels like a pause long enough to birth a star.

One thing this car did share with the Gallardo was an optional set of carbon brakes (that’ll be $16,250, thank you!) that took a very steady foot to modulate. Especially when slowing for a light, if a downshift happened to occur while you were trying to find the braking sweet spot, you got to do a dance called The Lurch.

Contrary to appearances, though, those are not complaints. (Except for the eGear, which we’d skip for the proper manual.) If we had the required liquidity, we’d be on the phone to Sant’ Agata right now instead of writing this review. We’re just telling you what to expect when you drive it. To deride it for being loud, firm and a handful at slow speeds is telling your girlfriend, “Hey honey, you know those high-heeled, thigh-high boots? You should stop wearing them because they just don’t make any sense…”

And we would never do that.

And this is why we have no complaints: because when the LP640 is at a standstill or on the trot, it is perfect. We’ll say it again: park the car or get it above 20 mph and you inhabit a land flowing with milk and honey, raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens. And lots of people pointing at you.

When the car is parked, start it up and just listen. Dissect the sound, and way down at the bottom is a muted cacaphony of clacks and whirs and spinning metal. Above that is an insistent drone, not high-pitched, but full-bodied mid-range. And above that and all around is a relentless sucking of air, like a monstrous, depressurized cavity has been opened. The engine sounds like it’s the singularity at the end of a black hole. Or else the car is powered by a nebula.

Even at residential speeds, the Murcielago is marvelous. As long as the roads aren’t war torn, after ten minutes at the con you’re so relaxed you’ve got one hand on the wheel and the other serving up the right CD track. A compliment we can give the eGear is that it will downshift for you (but won’t upshift), and the throttle blips that accompany the descent make slowing down sheer musicality. Another compliment: the paddles are bigger on the Murcielago than the Gallardo, and even though they’re on the column, they are never far away.

That is partly to do with the small steering wheel and partly to do with the relaxed rack ratio, which gives you a turning circle akin to Stonehenge. You can do a 180-degree turn at a stop light, but you should plan on using all available space.

However, you probably aren’t reading this to find out how the LP640 does town duty.

One final compliment we can give the eGear: when it’s time to go, the system doesn’t ask any questions. From standstill, when you let off the brake and smash the gas, the car shoots off so quickly that even though you’re in the car you still ask yourself, “Did you see that?” The 640-hp 6.5L V12 goes from mid-range wail up to about 4,500 RPM, then transmogrifies into a Homerian Siren roaring loud enough to get the attention of passing UFOs.

If you’re on a highway with a 60 mph speed limit, you’re already a shoestring away from breaking the law.

Flip the paddle for second.

eGear unhooks, shifts, bites in again –

The car bucks, your head slams into the headrest, the engine gets so malicious that extraterrestrials in the Sombrero Galaxy are asking each other “Do you hear that noise?”, and you’re accelerating even faster –

Flip the paddle for third.

The power doesn’t stop. The speedo needle is trying to swing around back on itself, but it’s taunting you, because it knows it has more room on the dial than you have road. Unless you have a couple of runways or an Autobahn, you’ll never see sixth gear in anger. You’re already going faster than the passing piston-engined planes above you. Much faster.

And this is what the car was made for. The steering is perfect. Never light, it is always even, and that shallow steering ratio means there are no quick movements needed. Guide it with a confident hand, and it will obey every order.

Uneven road surfaces, changes in camber, none of these fluctuations seem to affect it. The car is so stiff and sits so low to the ground — at such speeds it only wants to stay there — it simply isn’t high enough for there to be sufficient play to dip into anything, to become unsettled. Sweepers are a course in divinity. Yet come to a hard turn, hit the carbon ceramic stoppers and know the feeling of your spine pressing on the seatbelt, crank the wheel around, flip the downshift paddle a few times while you zero in on the apex, back on the gas, and let her scream out of the corner and teleport you to the next horizon.

When cruising in fifth and hit by the urge to drop down to second and take a ride on the Space Shuttle Murcielago, we never once worried that the car would let us down. As long as you’re not on some spit of asphalt custom made for a Lotus Elise, the LP640 is limited only by your knowledge of the road and your knowledge of how to drive it. The car isn’t glued to the road — it is the road, a single amplitude of tarmac flowing between the shoulders. Go with it, and you will go far, my son…

This is why the Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 would be our daily driver. That’s right, every day, even if we had to commute. It’s because this is not just a supercar, it is an argument. And it makes a winning case not just for dreams, not just for exotics, not just for naturally-aspirated engines, and not just for begging for a gig at Autoblog so that Lamborghini will give you an LP640 for the weekend — it is an argument for life.

Not long after we learned that the famous Top Gear trio was in the U.S., a fan managed to snap some shots of Clarkson, Hammond and Mays testing their favorite examples of American muscle at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. The hosts made their way to salt flats by way of Reno, Nevada where they had a few modifications done to each vehicle in the name of high speed safety, namely driveshaft loops and fire extinguishers. If you saw our previous post on the subject, you already know that Clarkson is driving a Corvette ZR1, Hamster a Challenger SRT8 and May the super-fast but still luxurious Cadillac CTS-V, a car that shares much of its supercharged V8 architecture with the new force-fed mill in the ‘Vette. We can already surmise that the ZR1 easily took top honors at Bonneville thanks to its slippery shape and abundance of power. Now, which car wins the comparison test? We look forward to next season to find out. Check out the gallery below for more pics of the action going down, or click here and follow the photostream.

More news on the 2010 Chevy Camaro has been revealed after the Camaro SS made its live debut at Indy Bash 2008. According to this thread on the Camaro5.com forums, dealers will begin taking orders for Chevy’s new sportscar on October 13th, though pricing may still not be available at that time. Also revealed are a list of performance and appearance accessories that includes a rear spoiler, rear diffuser, ground effects package, many different kinds of stripes, different engines covers for both the V6 and V8 models and performance parts like a cold air intake, catback exhaust, shorty headers and Hurst short throw shifter. Interior accessories include the obligatory carbon trim kit, a body-colored lighted trim kit, floormats and a nostalgic looking subwoofer, while a selection of chrome and painted wheels will also be offered. Check the link below for more images that reveal exactly how fast and furious you can make the new Camaro look.

Recent snooping at the EU patent office yielded an application revealing the 2010 Renault Megane 3-door Coupe. The images (most likely shot of a clay model) show a much tamer production version when compared to the Renault Megan Coupe concept shown at the Geneva Motor Show earlier this year. Sleeker than the 5-door Megane shots leaked a couple weeks ago, the coupe’s C-pillar differs most noticeably as the window glass sweeps to a clean point as it meets the rear hatch. The best guess is that the coupe will see a range of engines from 1.4-liters up to 2.0-liters rated between 100 and 160 hp, depending on the model. Look for it on sale next year, but sadly not on our shores.

Last year, many people got their first glimpse of Hyundai’s new Genesis luxury sedan as the Giants beat the stuffing out of the Patriots during Superbowl XLII. Pleased with the results of that effort, Hyundai is coming back to the big game, this time with the Genesis Coupe. Outgoing creative agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners is handling two 30-second commercials featuring Hyundai’s sporty new rear-drive two door. While the agency change has raised some eyebrows, Hyundai insists that it will continue to work with Goodby for quite some time, even as it transitions creative duties to World Marketing Group, already handling media buys for the automaker. We’ll have to tune in for all four quarters to see if the jilted ad folks mailed it in, but judging from the quality of Goodby’s work on the Genesis Sedan - and the target-meeting 8,000 units sold - the pigskin-centric effort will likely meet with success.

Hyundai’s trifecta of SEMA-bound Genesis Coupes is complete, and the latest tuned, rear-wheel-drive two-door comes courtesy of Street Concepts. Unlike the turbo’d models from RMR and HKS, the Street Concepts Coupe is packing the 3.8-liter V6 fitted with a custom cold-air intake and a Magnaflow exhaust. According to Street Concepts’ owner, Shawn Williams, their aim is to “maximize the driving capabilities of the Genesis Coupe while striving for a level of practicality…”

To that end, the only performance mods – outside of aiding the V6’s breathing – include a modified suspension, Brembo brakes and 19-inch Volk wheels shod in performance rubber. The exterior benefits from a black camo and “stealth fighter-inspired paint design,” along with tinted head and taillights, APR rear wing and custom grille. Inside, carbon fiber trim joins a pair of Cobra seats with black suede accents and an Infinity audio system.

With the Coupes covered, we’re waiting to see who Hyundai tapped to tune its three Genesis sedans. We’re sure they won’t be nearly as entertaining on the track, but a few VIP-styled sedans could do a lot to stoke the image of the Genesis.

The Dodge Challenger SE is a good-looking coupe that dealers say is selling very well. We liked the base Challenger SE because it carried most of the styling cues of its far more expensive and fast SRT8 sibling at a reasonable price, and we can’t wait to try out the mid-level HEMI-powered R/T. Chrysler is now looking to add still more visual bark for its bite-less V6 Challenger with an SXT trim package. Chrysler of Canada is researching what the SXT Challenger should look like, and the Pentastar recently displayed a mock-up of the coupe at the Georgian College Autoshow in Barrie, Ontario, Canada to gauge interest. Chrysler surveyed Canadians regarding whether the SXT Challenger should receive a racing stripe, and also gave onlookers a choice of an 18-inch Mopar rim, or some played-out chrome rims. Chrysler also asked how much the SXT package should cost, and we’re hoping our northern neighbors checked the “Less than $500″ box, if only because the other choices were more expensive. The Cheers and Gears forums suggest that the SXT model may be for Canada only, but we have no information either way.