Motor Trend’s Carlos Lago gives us the rundown on the 2012 Lexus IS F. He explains the car’s significance in that it was Toyota’s first step back towards making performance oriented cars. He also goes on to articulate the IS F’s fun nature while noting the suspension and limited slip differential upgrades that make it a genuine competitor against the likes of the BMW M3 and Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG.
Motor Trend’s Johnny Lieberman brings us the latest in German executive express cars for this episode of Head 2 Head. BMW has been setting the benchmark standard for this class for a long time just like it’s done with the M3 and sport luxury sedans. The M5 has always been the perfect combination of size, comfort, outright speed and agile handling. This year’s model features the first turbocharged engine for the M5 line downsizing from the previous model’s V10 to a 5.5 liter twin turbo V8. The airflow through the heads has been reversed so that the two turbos sit in the valley of the V to improve efficiency. The turbocharged engine provides more power and a lot more torque while using less fuel than the V10. Porsche’s Panamera has been out for a while now and the GTS is their latest trim combination for it. As with many of their other GTS cars, the Panamera features a naturally aspirated engine with a lot of the goodies from the turbo model. Johnny does a good job explaining the nature of the two cars and picking a winner.
You guys know I don’t usually like to post videos where it’s just people chatting unless it’s pretty interesting. In this case, the staff at Motor Trend discuss the results from this year’s Best Driver’s Car Competition. They mainly address a lot of issues that were brought up in the YouTube comments regarding logistics and why they picked the lineup that they did. We also get some of their personal reflections and hints of plans for next year.
Motor Trend’s Associate Road Test Editor, Carlos Lago, has a wonderful way with words. I’ve featured a lot of his videos here because he does an excellent job describing what a car feels like through video and he has a great understanding on what it means for a car to be balanced. It turns out he is also an exceptional story teller. Sit back and let him tell you about how Motor Trend teamed up with Volkswagen to try and set the record for the fastest production hybrid in the new Jetta hybrid on the Bonneville Salt Flats. The car they’re using is going to be the first turbocharged hybrid to be for sale in the US, but hopefully we’ll be seeing more turbo and diesel hybrids coming to market. The car gets a turbo upgrade to pump 300 horsepower out of the 1.2 liter engine with the factory electric drive system and battery pack.
Carlos Lagos brings us something special on this week’s episode of Motor Trend Ignition. He gets to test drive the only left hand drive Mazda RX-7 Spirit R in the world. The Spirit R was Mazda’s way of commemorating the end of production for the 3rd generation FD3S RX-7. The last 1500 cars off of the production line received special upgrades to make them Spirit R’s. The car that Carlos gets to drive is a left hand drive model that a Mazda executive had converted to a Spirit R. He goes on to talk about how the harkens back to when the Japanese built cars that focused solely on driving pleasure.