Men Free Blog

Finding the ideal luxury sports car is a Goldilocks proposition: cars that fulfill either descriptive – luxury or sports – are piled high as Annapurna. For instance, the Ferrari F430 is a luxurious sports car, but it’s not a luxury car. The current CL63 is a sporty luxury car, but it’s not a sports car. Try to find a conveyance in which the little girl with the golden locks would sigh “This one is just right” – a car that has the sporting reflexes to keep her heart beating and a cabin supple enough for her to unwind in when the twisties are finished – and you see the field is disturbingly minuscule. Against all odds, the SL63 is that car: Goldilocks’ Golden Mean. Follow the jump to find out how and why, and check out the gallery of high-res images below.
Before we dive into the SL63 AMG, let us go back a bit. Prior to the current, facelifted SL, we spent more time thinking about which toothpaste to buy than we ever did considering the merits of the SL-Class. Like the Range Rover Sport, the SL is an emblem, a logo, the official car of older men likely to explain the near-adolescent ages of their dates by saying things like “She makes me feel young.”

So when Mercedes called to offer a sampling of both the SL600 and SL63 AMG, we attended more out of duty than desire. To prepare for a day of motoring in the new SL600 from Santa Monica to Palm Springs where we would meet the SL63 AMG, we bought a Polo and a Rolex, rolled up our sleeves, and practiced telling our broker – loudly – not to sell our shares in Dassault Systemes until they hit 42 euros. We even tried to find an aspiring model/actress to share the day’s ride with, but we had to settle for a fine chap by the name of Andy.

We started the drive by putting the top down and stopping for coffee at one of the sceniest places in Los Angeles. We got a spot right out front. We’re pretty sure that comes with the car. Women look. I flash my Rolex. Dial my broker. Bark orders. “Sell Kodak at eight-and-a-half!” I’m a winner. And now I feel like I’ve lived the SL dream, so I’d really like to click my heels three times and go home…

But there’s more driving to do, and it was a very good thing – for quite a few reasons – that I wasn’t wearing ruby slippers.

We pull off the highway in the egregiously misnamed Inland Empire. What, in another car, we would have looked forward to as gleeful driving sections – 180-degree turns, off-camber mountainside sections, blind corners, high-speed doglegs – began not far from the exit. And it was no more than a few corners when we had a funny and familiar feeling. Andy went around a turn at what must surely have been an accidental speed, and the conversation went something like:

“Andy, did you feel that?”

“I think so.”

“Do it again.”

Andy took the next turn on the gas.

“Andy… was that a… driving sensation?”

“I… think so… Hold please…”

Andy laid it on through a ferocious set of kinks like he was trying to outrun Somali bandits, hit a straight and floored it, popped over a blind crest and slammed on the brakes for a tight corner that was right there! but opened up into a long sweeping downhill right where he could test the rising speed of the car against the curve.

There was no mistaking it: the car handles.

The 5.5-liter twin-turbo V12 with 510 hp and 612 lb-ft. that runs through a 5-speed transmission propels the 4,455-pound car to 60 in 4.4 seconds. But that’s the easy part. Mercedes’ that go fast in a straight line are nothing new. We wanted to know why it handled like it did. Mercedes would only say that it was due to the second generation Active Body Control (ABC), featuring revised dampers among other things, and the Direct Steer system that uses a new tooth profile – no Rube Goldberg electro-gimmicky-slash-German-engineering here – for more engaging response. Harumph.

If that is really all Mercedes did, then the SL was a much better car – or at least, much closer to being a great car – than we ever suspected. But we don’t buy it. However, all of a sudden we weren’t so upset about having to go to Palm Springs to drive the SL63 AMG.

This is what you need to know to prepare yourself for the SL63: the AMG division was started in 1963 by former Mercedes engineers Hans Werner Aufrecht (A) and Erhard Melcher (M) in the town of Großaspach (G). They were racers, and they were very good at building racing engines and cars. Over the decades, at some ill-defined point, the pure racing creations became huge engines stuffed into chassis’ with the handling dynamics of manatees. You could beat a Porsche to the next stoplight. You couldn’t beat the guy in the purple Cavalier with the primered J. C. Whitney wing through a series of corners.

Two years ago, though, a gent by the name of Volker Mornhinweg ascended to the AMG throne, and he had a come-to-Gott meeting with his team, putting the question, “Do we want to keep doing what we’re doing, or shall we return to AMG’s heritage and build proper sports cars?” The answer was unanimous, and although it has taken two years to deliver that answer in steel, the wait was, as they say, worth it.

If we were to anthropomorphize the SL63 AMG, we wouldn’t use a German, but a Russian: Peter the Great. This is the car, with its piercing look and imposing mien, that is leading the charge in dragging its compatriots – Russians in Peter’s case, AMG’s perception in the SL63’s case – into modernity, respect.

It was with this information, and the taste of the SL600 appetizer still fresh on our palate, that we strove to give the SL63 AMG a non-stop caning. Call the car a masochist – and yours truly a sadist – because we both loved it.

The SL63 features the well known naturally aspirated 6.2-liter V8 with 518 hp and 465 lb-ft. Compared to the SL600, it has a 7,200 RPM redline instead of the other car’s 5,950, it is 286 pounds lighter and has the same 0-60 time. It uses a 7-speed multi-clutch transmission (MCT) with four possible shift modes and a double-clutching function. And our cars also had the Performance Package consisting of 15.4-inch vented, compound front rotors, a multi-disc limited-slip rear differential, 19-inch AMG twin-spoke forged light-alloy wheels, staggered-width tires of 255/35 ZR19 in front and 285/30 ZR19 at the rear, an even more refined AMG high-performance suspension based on ABC active suspension, and a smaller steering wheel with a flattened underside and silver-aluminum shift paddles. Let’s go driving then.

The hills above Palm Springs are strung with ancient concrete, the same stuff that Sinatra and crew rode on with cars full of groupies when doing the Vegas run. But the SL63 does not ask for cosseting, it only asks for roads. It rumbles from idle, noisy, thuggish, more Corvette than The Continent. The car will happily do the low-speed boulevard run – it’s a Mercedes after all – and everywhere you go and stop, people look at you like they want to welcome you since you’re so well dressed… but they can’t quite… because, well, sir, your car is growling…

From a standstill, pull the trigger on the car it shoots off the line immediately, insistently. No fireworks – save for the exhaust, which appears to be bellowing the German equivalent of “Out of the way!” – just a mission to get to 60 mph in 4.4 seconds, which is only a tenth shy of the new 2009 Porsche Carrera S with PDK.

The promise of semi-automatic transmissions is that the gap between gear changes is reduced to milliseconds. The tragic disillusionment with semi-automatic transmissions comes when you discover that the gap between the clutch disengaging and then giving you access to the power again takes almost as long as the first grade. Not so with the SL63’s multi-clutch transmission: it’s pull-shift-power, pull-shift-power.

Another great feature of a well-sorted semi-automatic transmission: it knows when to shift down and which gear to shift into, and if it happens to get wrong-footed the mistake is corrected in those aforementioned milliseconds.

All you have to do in the SL63 is attack attack attack attack attack. That’s all. The AMG-tuned ABC is stiffer than that on the standard SL-Class, and works with ABS, ASR, and ESP systems that have also been recalibrated to give you a lot more room to play with the car and much more subtle help if you ever need it.

Mercedes says the car has between 68- and 95-percent less body roll than a comparable car with the same suspension setup. Throw it through turns and gravity, not body roll, will be your main concern, and it’s still imperceptibly flexible enough that you won’t have to pay any price in skittishness. When you’re finished with a run of road-course cornering, you will demand your passenger call you Fangio for the rest of the day.

When you finally do get close to the car’s limits, it’s a very un-Mercedes-like affair: there are no gongs, no alarms. The only communication comes from the movements of the car itself and the tires working to go in the intended direction. Coming around one corner at a speed approaching blue blazes, we could feel all four wheels sliding, gently, confidently, but saying “All right, you get another two miles an hour out of us, and then you’re in the Scheisse.” That’s the kind of dialogue that turns good drivers into excellent ones, knowing just how much more bend you’ve got before the snapping and breaking begin. It still shocks us to write this, but it’s another reason why the SL63 is a truly fantastic driver’s car.

There are more thrilling rocketships that will let you know you’ve gone too far by swapping ends and flying in reverse toward something firm and immovable. There are more luxurious runabouts that will usually distract you from investigating their sporting chops by playing a tune called “shake, rattle & roll” remixed by DJ Understeer.

But in this car we can fight above our weight any time of day and on any road, and we’d accept any challenge from any other car – F430, Gallardo, R8, Vantage, you name it. We might get beat, but only just, and that’s only if the other driver is very good and doesn’t make a single mistake. And then we’d invite them to endure that other challenge, navigating one full day of LA’s finest motorized morass, and we doubt the fight would last past noon. And if you’re thinking the Vantage might still be in it, did we mention the disappearing folding hardtop with the panoramic roof?

That is why this car sits, almost alone, in the sweet spot of the Goldilocks proposition. It is not exactly beautiful, but it is, to our eyes, hot. It’s not buckwild, but its limits are well off in the distance. It is not the ultimate in either handling or luxury, but it is quite possibly the ultimate in balance. And unlike the Aston Martin DB9 Sport Pack, which is our favorite luxury sports car because it is gorgeous and handles gorgeously, the SL63 has a trunk that you can actually put things in. The SL63 AMG is how you say, acronymically: “just right.”

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.

Ford Motor Company sent Jaguar packing this year when it sold the storied English automaker, along with Land Rover, to Indian mega corp. Tata. On its way out the door, Jaguar took something special: the XF sedan. Its entire development process having been carried out under the stewardship of Ford, the XF is easily the most tasty fruit born of the cross pollination between the Blue Oval and Leaping Cat since they were first joined back in 1989. Read on to find out how the 2009 Jaguar XF Supercharge fared in the Autoblog Garage.

The 2009 Jaguar XF is the second manifestation of Design Director Iam Callum’s intention for the brand (the first was the 2006 XK) that heralds a completely new look for the automaker’s entire lineup. Based on the CX-F concept car that debuted at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show, the new XF is not just unlike any Jaguar you’ve ever seen, but it’s also distinct from any luxury sedan offered by BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi.

Nearly all connection with past Jaguars has been deleted save for the fluting that begins above the headlamps and flows into the hood. Next to those, however, are creases, bold lines and even a power bulge in the hood that’s visible from the driver’s seat. We generally like the new grille, the chrome split lower air intakes, and the hood that swells with testosterone, but miss the sexy cat slit headlights of the concept that would’ve put this design over the top.

The XF features a coupe-like profile that flows into broad rear fenders with a strong, high shoulder line. Yes, the rear of the XF, particularly the taillights, still looks very Aston Martin in execution, but average buyers will likely just see a shapely rear end. The XF also features chrome in all the right places with brightwork used to draw attention to particularly attractive elements like the aforementioned lower air intakes, the grille and a strip across the rear connecting the taillights that’s emblazoned with the word ‘Jaguar’ in case the uneducated wonder what it is. While the design of the XF may be polarizing, it does have some particularly fetching angles from which it looks like a million bucks.

Just as the exterior breaks from the past, entering the interior is like hopping out of an E-Type into a Star Trek Shuttlecraft. Overall it is an aesthetic gem with just a few functional foibles. The dash is dominated by a strip of silver that extends from door to door, above which our tester sported soft black leather with red stitching. Muted Oak veneer inlays are also set in the center console and on the doors. The large touch navigation screen is located in that strip of silver, which is met from below by a center console that contains large, easy to use controls for the stereo and HVAC systems. We’ll refrain from trashing Jaguar’s sluggish nav system (it’s been done to death), except to say that its slow performance takes away from a well-designed user interface and attractive graphics.

The center console itself features the interior’s most striking element: the JaguarDrive gear selector. Traditional shifters are sticks for sentimental reasons only, as many modern day automatics don’t require the mechanical motion of pulling a lever from P to D to get underway. Jaguar replaced the stick with a rotary knob that lays flush with the console’s surface when the car is off and rises to meet your hand when turned on. It’s purely theater and joined onstage by a Start button that pulses red when you get in and flush air vents that flip open. This startup performance isn’t really functional nor even impressive after a few showings, but it always elicits remarks from first time passengers.

Other trick features that set the XF interior apart include proximity sensors for the interior lights and glove box release. Instead of pushing buttons, you wave your finger in front of the front dome lights or the small circle embedded in the wood trim above the glove box. Branded JaguarSense, this technology is more functional than backflipping air vents and thus was appreciated more in everyday use.

While the XF’s instrument panel is ultra chique modern, Jaguar does a good job warming up the interior with the aforementioned leather and wood, as well as, in the case of our tester, a striking shade of orange called Spice for the leather seating surfaces. The seats were luxury car comfy, though we were surprised that the XF Supercharged didn’t have more side bolstering to prevent ejection out the side window during hard cornering. And like with most luxury vehicles, the driver is given so many ways to adjust his seat that finding the right position is a never-ending pursuit.

So far we’ve learned that the Jaguar XF has a love-it-or-hate-it exterior and an avant-garde interior, but sedans in this class sink or swim based on how dynamic they are to drive. This is where the XF Supercharged shatters your preconceived notion of a Jaguar. The heart of the beast is Jaguar’s venerable 4.2L V8 that’s supercharged to produce 420 horsepower and 413 ft-lbs of torque. While not sporting the newest tech available, the supercharged 4.2L V8 is an eager to please engine with an abundance of on-demand torque and subdued purr that’s ready to roar with a tap of your right foot.
Facilitating forward movement is Jaguar’s six-speed Sequential Shift automatic transmission, a shift-by-wire system that can click off gear changes 15% faster than the same tranny in the XK. There are also large paddle shifters that turn with the steering wheel for manual control, and we actually enjoyed using them. The shifts are shockingly fast and accompanied by a throttle blip that smooths the transition so the car stays settled when shifting during a corner.

What really shapes the XF’s personality are the transmission’s different modes, which include standard, Winter and Dynamic. Being August, we didn’t a get a chance to try out how Winter mode affected grip on slippery surfaces, but we did play with Dynamic mode… a lot. Engaged by a button below the rotary gear selector that’s marked with a checkered flag, Dynamic mode not only makes the transmission shift faster, but also increases throttle sensitivity and generally quickens the cat’s reflexes. Combine Dynamic mode with a defeated stability control system, and the fate of the rear tires is entirely in your hands. In this most extreme set up, the XF Supercharged feels like a completely different animal, one that’s much more aggressive and shouldn’t be fed by hand.

The XF Supercharged has a sports suspension with a CATS (Computer Active Technology Suspension) system that features two stages of dampening depending on whether you’re puttering around town or really pushing the car. Any change in damping levels while we were driving went unnoticed as the suspension felt firm all the time. We blame the combination of 20-inch, five-spoke wheels wearing low profile tires and a rock hard rigid body structure, as the suspension is entirely on its own in isolating passengers from road irregularities. If you can live with it, the sport suspension rewards by hustling this 4,194 lb sedan around like a running back.

While the standard XF sedan gets 12.83-inch rotors at all four corners, the XF Supercharged receives larger front rotors that measure nearly 14 inches in diameter. They’re up to the demands of a powerful sports sedan, but felt grabby during around-town driving where you’re not trying to arrest all forward momentum in an instant. The variable ratio rack-and-pinion steering also feels artificially light at low speeds, but builds up a nice weighty feel as speeds increase.

The Jaguar XF Supercharged does come impressively loaded for its base price of $62,200, which is admittedly not cheap. Our only options were an adaptive cruise control system for $2,200 and heated steering wheel for $300, bringing the total with a $775 destination charge to $65,475. That’s a premium price for a newcomer to the luxury sports sedan segment, especially one wearing the badge of a brand that doesn’t have many of its nine lives left.

Jaguar desperately needs a hit, and we think the XF lineup including the standard model, Supercharged and upcoming XF-R can ultimately deliver. In fact, we don’t believe Ford would’ve gotten the billions it did for Jaguar had it not been for this sedan that proves there are still people in Coventry who still care about the Leaping Cat.

As a tyke I staged an all-out assault on my parents’ better judgment for a G.I. Joe hovercraft. Not three months had passed following their surrender when I ransomed my mischievousness for the next toy my happiness hinged upon. Oh, that hovercraft? Forgotten. The auto industry works the same way. We often convince automakers that we’ll buy every cool car they’d make if they would just grow a pair and build ‘em. They do their part and then… we don’t. The trust is broken and we’re back to buying what automakers know will sell.

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After much whining from performance enthusiasts, the rear-wheel-drive 2008 Pontiac G8 GT is finally here and at first glance is packing almost everything we wanted. Will GM be made to look like the pushover parent and left paying the bill for this Aussie import while customers shift their attention on to the next big thing, or will the G8 turn out to be the toy we never tire of? Read on to find out.Unlike GM’s newest all stars, the Cadillac CTS and Chevy Malibu, the Pontiac G8 is not a new product developed specifically for North America. It is technically an import from Australia; a rebadged version of the rear-wheel-drive Commodore VE sedan on loan from Holden, GM’s Australian division. We’ve been down this road before with the Holden Monaro-based GTO sold from 2004 – 2006. Enthusiasts promised GM that the GTO would be a big hit, but we didn’t buy them in big numbers. Apparently all is forgiven, as GM’s back again with the G8.

Forgettable styling is not an issue with the G8 as it was with the GTO. Pontiac designers took the stately form of the Commodore VE and added their own corporate face with recessed twin grilles and a split lower air intake incorporating a pair of fog lamps. The hood features sporty nostrils that are semi-functional, meaning that while they don’t redirect air directly into the engine, they do allow it to pass into the engine compartment to aid cooling.The integrated chin spoiler, subtle side skirts, and tasteful wing placed atop the rear deck ensure that this Pontiac won’t be mistaken for a Saturn,

 and the G8 wears its fender flares like a muscle shirt pulled tight over a set of standard 18-inch, five-spoke wheels. The Ignition Orange color of our tester was also a pleasant surprise, and those body-color door handles are like finger nail polish that matches the dress. Open the G8’s unusually light doors and you’ll encounter this sedan’s biggest target for criticism: its interior. Being sourced from Australia, the G8’s switchgear is not from the familiar GM parts bin, though it feels fine to the touch. Our tester came equipped with the Premium Package that also adds padded leather to the center armrest, shift lever and door panels, which nicely offsets the two types of textured black plastic that dominate the dash. The center console that cascades down from the windshield interrupts a lone strip of silver plastic bisecting the instrument panel, while ridiculously large digital gauges for the battery voltage and oil pressure top the center stack. Below that, you’ll find a 6.5-inch LCD screen containing the user interface for the 11-speaker Blaupunkt stereo and HVAC system. At the bottom are the knobs and buttons that control those systems, and they don’t require a peek at the owner’s manual to use. The steering wheel has a large diameter that some performance enthusiasts might not like, but the redundant controls for the stereo are unobtrusive and work well. The turn signal stalk on the left side of the wheel, however, feels like it might break off in your hand.

The heated seats in our tester were wrapped in cowhide and featured 6-ways of power adjustment. Altering their incline, however, required twisting a knob on the side of the seat back that was hard to reach and difficult to turn. The driver and front passenger chairs are wide and have bolsters that aren’t so extreme they interfere with a comfortable cruising position, but they’re there for you when lateral G forces come calling.
Rear passengers, meanwhile, get a contoured bench with a bottom seat that’s tilted sharply upwards. This allows taller folk to sit comfortably without scraping their heads, but shorter passengers might feel like they’re being swallowed whole. The relatively low beltline on the G8 also allows for a large greenhouse that gives both the driver and his passengers an unimpeded view of the environment that’s whizzing by, which in our eyes compares favorably to the claustrophobic cabins of the Chrysler 300 and Dodge Charger.
Like every V8 in the LS family of engines, this one generates a ton of torque so that it never feels labored pushing around all 3,995 lbs. of the G8 GT. It also features an Active Fuel Management System, otherwise known as cylinder deactivation technology. With the transmission in Drive, cylinders 1, 4, 6 and 7 switch off under light loads to save fuel. When this happened we felt the smooth operation of all eight cylinders give way to a slight vibration that could only be felt through the pedals, and passengers never perceived it. One can’t judge the G8’s almighty engine without taking into account its six-speed automatic transmission. We lament the lack of a manual gearbox in the first year of availability for the G8 GT and hope that will be corrected after G8 GXP arrives next year, but the six-speed auto ain’t all that bad. At first, we hated it. In normal operation the six-speed is programmed to do whatever it can to conserve fuel.

Throttle response is dialed way back, you’re in sixth gear before you know it, and any opportunity to deactivate half the cylinders and save fuel is taken. In D, the G8 GT does not feel like a 361-hp sports sedan.

Flick the shifter over to Sport Shift mode, however, and you get a direct line to the V8 engine’s office where it’s been waiting to take your call. 

 The number of synapses between the throttle and your right foot shrinks and the six-speed will stay in each gear until it is absolutely certain that you’re done with it. The G8 GT does allow you to change gears manually but asks that you push the floor shifter forward against the forces of inertia to upshift, which is back asswards.

A pair of steering wheel-mounted paddle shifters would’ve been more intuitive to use and an attractive alternative to the impending manual. Rather than messing with the manumatic, we left the six-speed in Sport Shift mode and were rewarded with prodigious power on demand.Unlike most rear-wheel-drive American iron, the G8 GT is more than just a drag strip queen. The Zeta platform on which it’s based will be shared with the upcoming Chevy Camaro and is granite strong. This allows the FE2 suspension package to handle potholes without a quiver and hold a curve without complaint. There was a perceptible amount of body roll, as well as squat and dive when starting or stopping hard, but there’s just something about being driven by the rear wheels that anyone who owns a front-wheel-drive family sedan needs to feel to appreciate. Those people who live with understeer on a daily basis will never want to go back after driving the G8. Steering, however, is rather heavy at low speeds, which might turn off buyers who don’t understand the exact definition of a sports sedan. We found it highly communicative, though the wheel does demand attention while cruising at highway speeds when the 18-inch wheels wearing P245/45R18 summer tires begin to wander off course. Arresting their rotation is a drama free affair thanks to the twin-piston calipers clamping on 12.64-inch discs up front and 11.73-inch discs in the rear.

We count the 2008 Pontiac G8 GT as another all star in GM’s arsenal of new products, and like the CTS did for Cadillac, the Enclave did for Buick and the Malibu did for Chevy, it instantly embarrasses the other products in Pontiac’s lineup and demands its competition come back with something more. We didn’t notice the missing in-car entertainment options and navigation system one bit after the first smoky burnout, and the second, third and fourth time we lit up the rear rubber proves that the G8 GT is definitely not a toy of which we’ll soon tire.

The Toyota Corolla hasn’t stirred passion since the AE86, so it’s forgivable to greet an all-new version with a yawn. The Corolla recipe has been refined to the point of grand success for so long now that changes must be approached carefully. A new version must not upset the car’s combination of refinement, value, and durability. To be sure, the 2009 Corolla is likely to continue the model’s grade point average full of red circles from Consumer Reports. Objectively, it’s tough to top - subjectively, not so much.
Gallery: In the Autoblog Garage - 2009 Toyota Corolla XRS
Photos Copyright ©2008 Dan Roth / Weblogs, Inc.

click any image to enlarge
New duds certainly help. The Corolla has gone from blobby to “baby Camry,” and it’s one of the handsomest pieces of sheetmetal in Toyota’s U.S. lineup. Like the last-gen Corolla S, the 2009 Corolla XRS gets extra body frippery, and the visual appeal of the Corolla XRS rates high. Toyota is still a little flummoxed when it comes to making the track appropriately wide for the bodykit, but it’s harder to catch the 2009 model looking uncomfortable in its skin. The red on our test car didn’t hurt matters either, and the XRS gets further niced-out with alloy rims, a black mesh-pattern grille, black headlight housings and foglamps for visual distinction. The trunklid spoiler is the only boil we can find on this car.

On the spec sheet, the Corolla XRS pleads its case convincingly. There’s four-wheel disc brakes, a firmed up suspension, a strut tower brace, and most importantly for the sporty overtures, a bigger engine. The Corolla XRS uses Toyota’s 158-horsepower 2.4-liter four cylinder in place of the 1.8-liter, 132-horsepower standard unit. Nearly 500cc of extra displacement chews the fuel economy numbers down to 22/30, each off by 5 mpg from the 1.8L without delivering a gee-whiz increase in performance. The torque is welcome, but we’d trade it in a second for better control feel and a more supple ride.

The leather-wrapped wheel and shift knob bode well, but only the shifter offers some mechanical feel. Steering feel is largely absent, though the weighting is good and action linear from the electrically boosted rack and pinion. The clutch friction point is equally smothered, making smooth driving a deliberate practice. Drive by wire strikes again, too, making strange things happen on the tachometer upon clutch engagement. At least the chassis can keep up when you get frisky, though it’s only feigning interest and the ride can be a jigglefest on some surfaces. The Corolla XRS is not a pocket rocket in the vein of the Civic Si or Mazda3.

If it’s not a star athlete, what exactly is the Corolla XRS? A handsome, well-trimmed, economical car. All the safety gear is there; airbags left, right, center, and curtain. Seatbelt pretensioners, active head restraints, and stability control. Leather upholstery is available on the decently bolstered seats, though we tried the cloth. It would be stretching to call the chairs sporty, and the lack of lumbar adjustment and a hard bar across the coccyx left us wishing they’d used some of that motor money for better seating, too.

Power windows and locks along with remote entry are part of the power package that eases everyday use. Also upping the liveability quotient is an upgraded audio system with JBL speakers, a six-disc in-dash CD changer, aux jack, and XM. Only you can decide if the spiffy radio is worth another grand, but it is one of the few audio systems we’ve ever tried that can make satellite radio’s miserable quality listenable.

Toyota’s typical obsessiveness results in a driving environment with intuitive ergonomics, and the materials and assembly quality are good. It’s not a Lexus, and everyone, even domestics, have stepped up their interiors lately, but the Corolla has a clean design that’s executed well. The back seat is fairly accommodating - the Corolla’s not the subcompact it once was - and a flat floor across the rear enhances the spacious vibe. The usefully large trunk capacity can be expanded by folding down the rear seatbacks, and elsewhere inside are two gloveboxes, large door cubbies, and an also-capacious storage bin in the center armrest. As a car for the everyman, the Corolla hits all the right notes. For the apex-carver who delights in a little cut and thrust, which is the type of customer the plumage will interest, the XRS will come off as nervous when you request it live up to its image.

The price, too, is less than palatable. The XRS starts above $20,000, and ours was optioned up to $22,000 - a little hard to stomach for a Corolla. That kind of dough will buy a comparably equipped Civic EX-L, while a Spec-V Sentra SE-R brings 200 horsepower to the party for a couple grand less, and the Ford Fusion delivers more space in its nicer interior, virtually the same mileage, and reliability ratings that better the CamCord while riding a far more ebullient chassis than the Corolla XRS.

We’re hardly saying the Corolla XRS is a poor choice - it’s sharp looking, well built, and capable. Our main beef lies with the speedy-looking bodywork writing checks that the car’s dynamics can’t cash, which is a bit of a letdown if you allow your eyes to set expectations. A quick four-word summation: “Looks great, less filling.”

source: Autoblog