This past weekend, from May 12 to 15, the Society of Automotive Engineers held what could legitimately be called the Olympics of Motorsport—old school version—but is formally known as Formula SAE Michigan. 106 university teams from around the world (including teams from Estonia, India, Austria, Korea and Venezuela) gathered for events designed to showcase theoretical and practical motorsports knowledge.
We’re just a little jealous.
In this issue of Winding Road, we drive the 2011 Ford Mustang GT, and rejoice in the return of the 5.0.
Saab’s new Dutch owner Victor Muller is an adamant, outspoken kind of car guy. Exemplifying this sometimes impulsiveness, while we were talking with him near the airport he handed us the key fob to his pre-production 2011 Saab 9-5, and said we could have a spin in it so long as he was our constant passenger.
Is that you, M Roadster? We’ve fallen madly in love with the new BMW Z4, especially the 35i with its twin-turbo inline-six and Boxster-hunting driving dynamics. And while we’ve secretly been hoping for an M-badged version, it looks like this new model, the sDrive35is, will be as closest thing we’ll get. (That’s fine.) Look for the 35is to make its official debut next month at the Detroit Auto Show.
For a while, the future of Saab looked glum. Thankfully, the fine folks at Koenigsegg have scooped up the Scandinavian automaker and now the future doesn’t look so bad. The current 9-5 was a mess of General Motors influence on an aging platform and the end result was really quite bad, but from the details and images that we have on the new 9-5, it looks like Saab might be back in the game again.