This is another one of those car geek videos that regular people will find boring. Jay Leno checks out the new SRT Viper GTS with some folks from Chrysler. They talk about the old Vipers and how SRT is now it’s own brand for cars like these. The car’s designer then comes in and they pour over all of the little details of the car.
Jay Leno takes us for a stroll around the Concept Lawn at this year’s Pebble Beach car show. He checks out Infiniti’s electric Emerg-E, the Mercedes-Benz Concept Style Coupe and a collector Rolls Royce Coupe from their bespoke program.
What is the difference between a good car review and a bad car review? Anybody can get into a car, mash the throttle and then report back saying that’s it fast and it looks good. That does nothing to convey the driving experience to people who don’t have the privilege of driving that same car. If I wanted to know that a car was fast and looked good, I’d just read the 0-60 specs and Google some pictures of it. I watch car reviews because I’m curious about a car’s essence. I want to know what the designers’ philosophy was for the car and if they succeeded in achieving it. How does the car speak to you as a driver? What does it take to master it? Being able to put those sensations into words and video separates the good car reviewers from the people who are wasting their time. If I can’t drive the car vicariously through you, then you’re not doing your job. I bring all this up because evo Magazine just posted the best review I’ve seen of the McLaren MP4-12C. Henry Catchpole picks up the car at the McLaren Factory and takes it for a leisurely road trip to Monaco. On the way, he takes the car through some of the world’s finest driving roads in the mountains of France. You’ll see that it’s a dream drive right from the opening scene of the video. Give him 12 minutes of your time and you will know exactly what it feels like to have an MP4-12C as a dancing partner.
It looks like Motor Trend did a little multi-tasking when they flew Jason Cammisa out to Germany. Besides comparing DTM legends, he also took the not-sold-in-the-US Volkswagen Scirocco for a spin. The original concept for the Scirocco was to make a sport coupe with running gear from the GTI. Whoever came up with that idea should get a gold star because it worked for the original car and this new one. The fact that the new car looks awesome doesn’t hurt, either. We ultimately didn’t get the current Scirocco here in the States because VW America thought that a wider/lower/sportier/better looking version of the GTI would poach sales from the best seller that they have in the regular GTI. Somebody also probably cited the constant “Stupid fat Americans don’t like hot hatches, fast wagons and things that are rad.” that usually denies us all the cool cars of the world. Check out the video to see what we missed:
Nissan Europe teamed up with the RML Group last year to build a custom Juke-R. It was basically a Nissan Juke body put on top of a shortened GT-R chassis and drivetrain. It’s kind of funny because Nissan Japan only found out about the car after it had been built and were a bit unhappy about having somebody crossbreed their flagship car with an economy crossover. The Juke-R was a big enough success that several people, whom I assume are Abu-Dhabi oil barons, have asked to buy Juke-R’s. Nissan Europe has decided to do a limited run of them at $590,000 a piece. Now that the cars are being sold, that means they have to go through a legitimate review with the press. This is the first one that I’ve found outside some random hooning videos. Jethro Bovingdon of Car and Drive Abroad puts the Juke-R up against a pretty high performance benchmark with the Porsche 911 GT2 RS.