Why not treat those who very much want to live the three-pedal life? Still, the base 2022 Mini Cooper is a great all-around subcompact, and any enthusiast would get a kick out of putting it through its paces on a winding mountain road.
The 2022 Lexus RC F Fuji Speedway Edition is an all-around excellent sports car for its power, handling, solid inputs, and exclusivity.
For first time ever Mazda Motorsports, in a collaborative effort with Long Road Racing, has developed and will be selling race-ready MX-5 Cup cars straight from the company’s factory in Hiroshima. The all-new ND-generation racers will be delivered with sealed motors and encrypted race-spec ECUs to prevent tampering, as the Cup cars also usher in Mazda’s new global racing series that will be held in North America, Europe and Asia, all in identical spec-tuned versions of the new Cup car.
It’s been six weeks since we introduced the Challenger Hellcat into Winding Road’s garage as a long term tester and it has been smooth sailing thus far with no mechanical abnormalities to report. With your author serving as the sole driver of the Hellcat (along with the luxury of not having to commute to an office) we’ve been looking for an excuse to rack up some miles on the big coupe.
The rollout of Mazda’s all-new fourth generation sports car has been an exercise in patience. Years of anticipation led into a series of teasers that often provided little detail, if any. But when the automaker did start to roll out specifics, as brief as they were, it became obvious that Mazda was well aware of just how important this car was to performance enthusiasts on and off the track.
The old adage that one should never meet their heroes has far-reaching implications. It suggests that the image we build up in our minds is without flaw. But as we all well know, the world we live in is an imperfect place, which means your heroes are destined to disappoint you, as reality can never compete with fiction.
This week we take you behind the wheel of the new Shelby GT350R Mustang with Ford factory driver Steve Thompson behind the wheel. A clear response to Chevrolet’s Camaro Z/28, the GT350R puts the track-focused GT350 on a 130 pound diet by way of deleting the rear seat, air conditioning, stereo and other non-essential items, along with the use of carbon fiber wheels which remove 13 pounds of unsprung weight from each corner. Bolstered aero bits include a large rear wing and rear diffuser and a unique hood vent which extracts heat and also reduces lift. The GT350R keeps the 5.2-liter V8 from the standard GT350, with an output said to be over 500 horsepower and 400 pound-feet of torque.
This week we’re at the helm of Audi’s mid-sized sports sedan, the A6. This particular model gets a zestier power train than the manual gearbox-equipped A5 coupe we recently tested, here powered by a supercharged 3.0-liter V6 making 333 horsepower and 325 pound-feet of torque, rather than the 220 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque generated by the turbocharged 2.0-liter four cylinder that powered the A5.
Today we’re bringing you this spectacular 1989 Pontiac Firebird Turbo Trans-Am 20th Anniversary Indy 500 Pace Car. Pontiac only made this model in 1989 specifically to pace the 73rd Indy 500. Total production numbered 1,555 units. GM kept 5 of them and sold 1,550 to the public. This is #1,221 of the 1,555 ever made. This example is highly original with only the battery and tires being replaced.
It’s been a while since we’ve had a long term test at the Winding Road offices, so we thought we’d reintroduce the idea with something a bit special. No doubt you’ve read our review of the Hellcat coupe from our stint behind the wheel in Portland last summer and our notes from wet track driving from earlier this year, but now we’ll have the opportunity to see what the 707 horsepower muscle coupe is like to live with year-round. Well – almost year round. We have this red bruiser in our garage for six months, so come December the folks from Dodge are under the impression that they’ll be getting this car back. We’ll see about that.
Wolf Racing’s latest model is a single seat version of the GB08 that’s been specially built to meet the real F1 testing criteria driven by the safety requirements for the European Hillclimb series.
GM’s luxury brand has made it a cornerstone of their mission as a company to beat the Europeans at their own game, and those marching orders continue with their latest V-Series offering. The segment is a hotly contested one filled with worthy contenders – from Audi we’ve got the RS5, Mercedes-AMG has the new C63, and BMW, the company that defined this segment in the first place, has a new M3/M4.
Ride onboard with SCCA Solo II Champion Danny Popp as he takes us around the autocross at the Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational at Michigan International Speedway.
This week we’re at the helm of Audi’s answer to the BMW 4-Series, the A5. Unlike the top-spec RS5 we drove last year, this Audi coupe comes with a feature rarely found in modern Audis sold in the US – a manual gearbox.
Subaru’s newest WRX STI is ready to be unleashed on rally circuits around the world. Constructed to meet the FIA’s new-for-2015 NR4 technical regulations, it is the newest Subaru WRX STI production rally car that is eligible in WRC 2, ERC 2 and other regional championships.
Back in April we were at the helm of the 2015 Volkswagen Golf R, and this week we’re taking a look at a Golf of a decidedly different flavor.
Back in April when we drove the 2015 Dodge Charger Scat Pack, we also got some seat time in a Shaker-optioned Challenger Scat Pack, and while the dual-nostril air intake that sticks out of the hood of this Challenger doesn’t boost horsepower, it’s not without its nostalgic merits.
When the CR-Z launched in 2010, Honda proposed that the car could trace its lineage back to the beloved CR-X, a diminutive 1980s era hatch that befitted from simple design and very light weight – under one ton in some configurations – which equated to spirited performance and nimble handling combined with excellent fuel economy and a low price tag.
This week we’re at the helm of the venerable Evo X, here in MR trim. Normally we’d dive into the particulars of the car, including its 2.0-liter four cylinder motor and its 291 horsepower and 300 pound-feet of torque and the six-speed dual clutch gearbox our test is equipped with. However, with the imminent demise of Evo looming ahead, we thought we’d share Multimedia Editor Chris Amos’ thoughts after spending a week with the iconic sports sedan.
This week we’re behind the wheel of what will likely be the tow vehicle of choice for many racers in the coming years – the all-new 2015 Ford F-150. Based on the Atlas Concept that Ford showed off at the 2014 Detroit Auto Show, perhaps the biggest news about the new truck is the incredible diet it has gone on – one which has allowed the F-150 to shed 700 pounds of weight in the process (in certain configurations).
This week we’re at the helm of Aston’s posh V12-powered grand touring coupe. For 2015 the Vanquish introduces the new Touchtronic III eight-speed automatic gearbox into the mix, a transmission that’s been honed meticulously with technical partner ZF for use in the Rapide S and Vanquish. This, along with changes to the final drive gear ratio result in a Vanquish that’s both faster and more fuel efficient than last year’s model.
This week we’ve got the keys to the best-selling Lamborghini in the company’s history. Powered by a 5-liter V10 dishing out 493 horsepower and 376 pound-feet of torque, the “baby Lambo” could be had with either a six-speed manual gearbox or a six-speed automated manual gearbox.
Conventional wisdom often dictates that in order to boost the performance capabilities of a road car, an inevitable trade-off must be made in terms of comfort, drivability, amenities, and so on. After our seat time in the all-new GTI last year, we left San Francisco thoroughly convinced that VW had reclaimed the title as the manufacturer with the hot hatch to beat. Because of that great mixture of fun, usability and pragmatism, we approached our stint with the new Golf R with some slight trepidation, wondering if the car’s bolstered enthusiast credentials would upset the balance of such a well-sorted vehicle. Fortunately, our concerns were unfounded – the Golf R retains all of the GTI’s best attributes and cranks up the sporting prowess considerably with virtually no drawbacks – provided you don’t spend too much time looking at your bank statement after you leave the dealership.
