carcounsel.com |HID|

Not to beat a dead horse, but the modern car has so much grip that there’s little opportunity to savor the sensation of just a whiff of opposite lock (one of the reasons the original MX-5 Miata was lauded in its time and is a legend today – even the tires were chosen to be more drifty).

Even the best and purest driver’s cars of today commit this mortal sin:

the Boxster is just too good. Even with the power boost, the Porsche feels like it could handle 500 hp. There is just so much grip that the near 300 hp engine is swallowed by the chassis. Sure, you can get it to understeer if you’re rude to the car but there is too much rear stick and not enough power to balance it with the throttle, at least on the street. And this is on the standard 18” wheels. The 19” setup should add even more grip. I kept hoping for a bit of rain just so I could have some fun. I remember that our long-term Boxster was far more enjoyable on winter tires than the summer tires. The loss in grip allowed you to exploit the full extent of the car on your local highway on-ramp. I guess my overall point is that I still love the Boxster but I wish it was not so good of a car. I like something that slides around a bit, likes to dance, and has lower limits on the street. – Marc Noordeloos, Automobile

(Even the engineers that get it right eventually succumb to market pressure for lower profile tires on larger wheels – look at what happened to the Elise and the aforementioned Miata…)

In this piece on the new TT (worth a read in its own right) one of my favorite new journalists explains the differences between three kinds of cars. So next time someone says one car is ‘better’ than another, ask them to clarify which kind of car they gravitate towards…

The Driver’s Car – It’s hard to explain unless you’ve driven one, but there are cars in this world that are just as fun to drive at 15 mph through a school zone as they are to blast down back roads. They are cars like the first-generation Mazda Miata, the original VW GTI, and the BMW E30 M3. They are cars that read the road surface to your fingertips with all the subtlety of a megaphone, that demand all of your attention all of the time. They don’t necessarily need to be that capable (and by modern standards, those that I’ve mentioned aren’t); they just need to be communicative and involving.

The Atari Car – Cars to which I refer as “Atari Cars” are a modern phenomenon. They are cars that feel like a video game. Atari Cars are immensely capable – they can often out-perform supercars without even breaking a sweat. And that lack of sweat defines them – they shrug off insane speeds and laugh at corners. Nothing unsettles their suspension. They’re so good that the driver has no idea how fast he’s actually driving. These are cars like Audi’s very own RS4, a Mercedes E63 AMG, Bentley Continental GT, and, to a lesser extent, cars like the Subaru WRX STi.

The Sports Car – A sports car (in the World According to Me) is that rare car that combines the communication of a Driver’s Car with the capability of an Atari Car. The quintessential sports car that comes to mind is the Porsche 911. It, like other sports cars (the Ferrari F430 and Lotus Elise come to mind), is among the world’s most capable machines, and yet remains so communicative and interactive that its owners take the long way to the grocery store.

It’s not quite common knowledge yet but some people are starting to understand that tires – because they are made of rubber – have a certain operating range within which the rubber adheres to the road surface. Go above that and the rubber becomes greasy and is prone to tearing, go below it and it reaches its ‘glass point’ and gets hard and slippery.

For this reason your average ‘all-season’ tire gets slippery on a dry cold day below about 40 degrees and your average performance tire gets slippery below about 55 degrees until you warm them up. It of course varies from tire to tire but something on the TireRack website got me thinking – apparently once you expose tires to extreme cold permanent damage can occur!

Like the motorsports tires this Extreme Performance street tire has evolved from, the ADVAN Neova AD07 radial’s construction and compounds have been tuned to maximize the tire’s traction and performance within a specific range of ambient temperatures. Therefore, unlike less highly-tuned tires, Yokohama’s care instructions specify that due to its compound characteristics, ADVAN Neova tires must be used and stored at temperatures above -10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) to maintain its performance and avoid tire damage.

the engine, while lacking nothing in power, has poor throttle response because it’s been saddled with a turbo. You have to concentrate more than you should to drive it well on a decent road, so that the gear changes remain smooth and the power returns at a time of your bidding and not that of the engine… in a Lotus you want – and, indeed, should be able to expect – a more engaging exhaust note, a wider powerband (the engine has given its best by 5,400rpm) and, particularly, a more immediate response to your right foot. And having a chassis that so faithfully and immediately acts on your demands only exacerbates the frustration at an engine that pauses before acting every time you touch the throttle.

And if that doesn’t bother you the refinement and interior quality will…

As Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim would say, “What a chance missed!”

“There’s the Colin Chapman [Lotus] approach, which is to have soft springs and stiff anti-roll bars; and there’s the BMW approach, which is to have stiff springs and soft bars… [At Jaguar] We’re sort of in the middle…”

-Mike Cross, Jaguar’s head chassis guy

source: Motor Trend

When we heard the Elise was coming to the U.S. we got excited. But news that revsions would first be made concerned us; would we miss out on the car that made the name an icon as was the case with the original WRX, 3.0L M3, early Miatas etc.?

The news that Toyota would be supplying the engine came as a shock, but then again there was little to recommend the Rover sourced unit that had been used previously. Our main concern was that the ride/handling compromise and alertness of steering would be ruined by the larger wheel and tire complement. In their April 04 issue, evo assured us that we hadn’t missed anything…

“the most impressive ride and handling compromise since launch, the Elise is better than ever.”

(We welcome comments from anyone who has had the good fortune to drive both versions back to back as we have yet to drive a car we prefer on 17s over 16s – particularly a lightweight one).

here’s an excerpt from Auto Express’s coverage:

power jumps 26bhp to 215bhp…The supercharger combines well with the unit’s variable valve timing, too, filling in the gaps in the powerband at low revs. It’s refined, but doesn’t sound sporty and some characteristic supercharger whine would liven things up

One catch: it’s only available in the European Corolla (for now).

UPDATE: Now that 4Car has sampled the engine, here’s what they have to say:

a supercharger… boosts the T-Sport’s power by around 15% to a heady 215bhp and maximum torque by 19% to 158lb ft. An added bonus of fitting the supercharger to the T-Sport variable valve timed 1.8-litre engine is that the sweet point in the rev range – where torque and power are at their peak – is lower, at 4,000rpm, meaning you don’t need to rev the engine all the way to the 8,000rpm limiter to make decent progress. You wouldn’t actually want to venture too high up the rev range though, as the aural accompaniment isn’t exactly tuneful…