To be fair, this didn't become widespread until the two magazines started sharing office space in Ann Arbor. When R&T was in Newport Beach they didn't do it.
Ok, I’ll add the proviso that the individual liar and/or con-man can be so noxious and unctuous that America and/or individual Americans can fall out of love with them. I call it the 15 minutes of fame rule.
Those 600+ HP SUVs can be a real hoot in every day driving, but you’re right that in terms of drag strip driving they’re downright boring after a few passes. When you can just WOT the thing and rip off 11 second passes over and over without a whit of skill, you really do start looking in the rear view mirror at the pony car or muscle car you’re trouncing and get the feeling that you’re getting the W while they’re stuck with having the fun.
But on the street, there’s nothing quite like a 2.5+ ton SUV with more horsepower under the hood than is present in most American driveways to make a grown man giggle. No shame in my game, good sir.
As the owner of an 80s Vette I think that’s great! Never forget it was a “underpowered” Corvette that made off with Rick Allen’s arm. Was probably riotous fun up to that point.
I enjoyed the original sets of old corvette struggle before it started spoofing current culture so much. The Dave one always has me rolling however and knowing what my neighbors must think of me.
Let me clarify that I don’t personally have any UberSUV game. My current utility cube makes a whopping 177 HP. It will drive through the ditches in front of my house with its superior faux wheel drive system, so that’s nice.
I giggle blowing the doors off manly men in loud trucks in a compact EV, knowing that eventually, if they catch up, they just cost themselves the price of a cold brewski.
I got halfway through the first part ready to comment how rollout won’t really effect trap speed but it’s important for ET; until I got to part two haha.
Your last paragraph on “ye who holds the fattest wallet runs the fastest” is basically why I’ve lost most interest in a sport I used to love. I know that’s racing in general but it’s sure sucked alot of challenge from it. Maybe I’d enjoy a spec series - also I can’t stand bracket racing.
That said, a TrackHawk is about as fun to drive as it is impractical, which is very. If I had the means and the care I’d totally grab one as overpriced as they are.
While I also think that’s stupid, I get it. Everyone always wants to be the fastest, which is why this article can exist. My single biggest rant in modern car culture is the pursuit of numbers over emotion or cool. I don’t care if a Plaid is 2 seconds faster, it has the personality of a vacuum cleaner. It’s a very effective appliance.
I realize cars are appliances at the core, but the special ones are built with a certain level of passion. Today, it takes very very little skill to go fast in a straight line. Ultra effective automatic transmissions, traction control systems, and cars that can achieve bonkers performance metrics without having to crack a valve over or a need for ANY mechanical knowledge. It used to mean something to have to build your own hotrod, stripping things to the block and then some.
My rant is that these acts have been dismissed. People correlate numbers with with demanded respect and it’s silly. I don’t blame print media, the internet is 1000x worse. Between 1320 video/ YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, we’ve distilled the culture to a “look at me!” contest.
While I can appreciate the numbers generated by the Plaid, I think it’s FAR more important that enthusiasts feel and appreciate the sheer violence of a TrackHawk launch - even stock. You feel like you’re breaking physics, and between that the noise and attitude is where cool actually lives.
The revelation that automakers were intimately involved with magazine testing and that numbers can’t really be trusted was a crushing blow to a much younger and more naive me, whose favorite day of the month was when the MT and C/D arrived.
I agree with Edmunds, zero to 60 is simply that. Correcting data, whether done by a car magazine or the government, means you are getting something that is not the truth. What should matter is consistency. Do all the testing at the same place. Note the date and temperature and run the tests. Show us the raw numbers. A 0-60 and a half mile trap speed could be knocked out in a morning. I should start my own magazine.
You bring up the problem of comparison. In my mind, many of us enthusiasts just want to put too much stock in it!
If they don't "correct" it then "well that was on a hot day, heat soak blah blah blah" and if they *do* correct it "it's not the actual numbers!" Not that I see a problem either way (other than fudging "correction" intentionally!), it just highlights that you can't satisfy everyone with a single set of data. I think it's legit to want to make an objective test that is as consistent and comparable as you can. One place C&D has been great was the "5-60" test invention. I owned the "4.7 0-60" 2009 WRX! Not in a million years was that a reasonable estimation of how quick that car was, and we all know why. 6.3 5-60, that sounds about right.
Jack is right on about the silliness of caring "what some other guy did"...funny how much this stuff matters, I guess the marketing depts are right on. Reminds me of the new GTIs, the pressers appeared to have been sent out with RE-71Rs mounted! Cuz the buyer isn't going to do his own evaluation, he just wants validation from "the experts" in order to justify the purchase. The GTI on the all-seasons you will be actually purchasing is rather miserable.
You had told me in the past that C&D and R&T employed *slightly* different “correction factors,” but I didn’t realize that there was perhaps a sinister underlying motivation…
Me at a job interivew: "If you're thinking of hiring me because I'm smart, don't expect me to be stupid when you're wrong." If they can't deal with those terms, I'd rather not be working for them. Is it any real surprise that I've been fired from nearly every W2 job that I've ever had? One lasted 2 days, one lasted 22 years but eventually my mouth will wear out my welcome.
You think you're a hit with women, do you? Do you have a board certified psychiatrist's diagnosis that you "give off a vibe that repells women"? It's a bit of a dilemma as I like how they feel.
I vaguely recall reading a piece by the purchaser of an automatic 392 Challenger who defended his choice by stating that by g-force measurement there was a point along the acceleration curve where it out-pulled the Hellcat.
Truth of that statement aside, the sentiment captures perfectly what I want, far more than published times--I want the car that punches me the hardest.
I know from a sample size of one that you can repeatedly drop the clutch at 5k RPM in a 5th gen viper and you’ll break the axle mounts before you break the transmission.
You may extrapolate that data point in any direction you prefer.
I’ve both. They don’t really compare well. I think the Viper is everything the Corvette WANTS to be, while the Corvette is everything the Viper can’t. The c5 is inherently more fragile, but it’s black slate approach as a performance car is not something to overlook lightly. Buy a c5 for the car you can transform it into, not for what it is. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy mine stock or stock-ish, but the real reward is seeing what they can be capable of.
When I worked at one of my auto mechanic jobs, I did a rear brake job on a 96 Grand Sport.
Like any conscientious mechanic, I HAD to take it for a test drive when I was done...
At the time, it was the fastest car I'd ever driven. Looking out the windshield, accelerating to three times the speed limit, I saw a circle of clarity directly ahead, surrounded by hyperspace.
Didn't even make it to the top of third gear before I had to turn around and head back.
I keep buying redneck-built GM G-Bodies and Fox Mustangs with way too much gear and assorted poor engine decisions even though I have a fairly healthy Coyote Mustang. Something about the thrilling panic of slamming a ratchet shifter into second and trying not to float the valves in a rattling deathtrap feels more real.
I love reading this type of intriguing information here and learning the backstory about these magazine shenanigans. But I have to confess I stopped really caring about 0-60 times and quarter mile times back about the time DED Jr. was starting Automobile magazine (the tidbit about him collecting a multi-million dollar bonus was quite interesting). I was very interested in such times when the 5.0 Mustang/Camaro wars were in full swing in the '80s - always hoping the Mustang came out on top (it often didn't). Beyond that, I've more just observed trends over the years ("wow, the Corvettes sure have fast 0-60 times now"), etc. I'm enough of an old farmer driver that I'm more concerned with whether my aging fleet can stay on the road and how can I improve the handling precision of my 54 year old Bronco or my 20 year old Super Duty.
Car & Driver at least, gave off a very strong smell for years of something being amiss with regard to BMWs, and seemed to be BMW's bought-and-paid-for PR arm.
It got so bad that one guy once wrote them letter commending them for not declaring an M3 the winner of their Corvette shootout.
It used to be fun and a little bit interesting to see what cars were able to hit 60 mph in less than 5 seconds. Now there are so many cars that do it in less than 4, and some under 2 and I find that ludicrous and to be honest a little boring. We're supposedly in a golden age of speed and horsepower but it's less fun than it was in 1985 or 1995. Or maybe I'm just an old guy, too...
Performance numbers always struck me as masturbatory because how often will most people achieve anything like them? I have no idea what the numbers are for my fifth-get VFR and my 993, but I can tell you they're quite fast enough for me.
Meh, I always tried to beat them. Cars tend to get faster as they break in, so if you can get decent air and have some skill you most certainly can best the published at times. The hardest ones to beat aren’t the “corrected” times, it’s the second hand magazines running cars at Englishtown In February. The DA is literally negative.
Who'd ever think anyone else would _LIE_ ?! . (snicker)
I need to go find this magical, mythical driveway and see if I can catch anyone having fun on it .
I've sold on all my fast vehicles and anything over 80 on two wheels isn't in my playbook anymore, you'll have to keep riding at 10/10ths and writing about it when you survive .
Damn, being 14 and running home to read a magazine from cover to cover was so amazing and I felt enlightened after the first read...now I just wonder what matters anymore...
The Great Myth of the Car magazine: That you can build a Car Craft or Sport Compact Car cover car on the precious few coppers you make working some shit retail or restaurant job.
It was just after the war and I was very blessed to be able to afford car magazines just to be able to see pictures and read about these wonderful cars since the only nice car I’d see was a German sedan driven by a gangster
MD was something I only heard in stories and it’ll be years before I had my first BigMac
Eventually my dad struck a deal with the newspaper stand guy that they’d let me read the magazines for free if I return them the next day without damaging anything so needless to say I thought I was the smartest car person in any direction.
Now I find myself in my thirties wondering is anything real and what even matters in todays existence... since the only thing we value (and are apparently willing to sell anything and everything for) is profit.
"We have more acceleration available to us than ever before. And yet people are less enthusiastic about cars than they’ve ever been."
I hold the magazines largely responsible for this. They create a world where cars win or lose comparisons, and therefore are (along with their owners) respected or mocked, almost exclusively on performance numbers. If you want your car to be taken seriously then it has to be the car that is the fastest regardless of other merits or drawbacks. There's no room for other qualities of cars or for any individualism in car preferences. Every other car in every class has to try to act like a BMW M3, and the M3 itself has to get faster every iteration at all costs, regardless of what that does to it.
This is why the market no longer has soft rides, luxurious materials, or any form of design that is not derived from austere German minimalism. And on the other side of the coin it's why lightweight cars other than Miatas are no longer allowed to be praised and manual transmissions, which have been bad for performance numbers for at least 15 years now, are disappearing.
Occasionally automakers rebel, as in the current interior designs of Lincoln products or the ride/handling equation of the Lexus RX. And when they do, boy do the magazines ever punish them. Make it more like a M3 or force your sales staff to be Sisyphus.
Someone called the M3 a "German Trans Am" around the time it went from a six to an eight and I think that's been the case ever since. The first generation with the turbo six was a simply miserable automobile that couldn't keep its back tires under it on a racetrack.
I don't know if that comparison's fair. If it were, the M3 would be driven by the Teutonic equivalent of a middle-aged Hard Four named Deb on her way to work at Eat N Park.
As someone who just bought an E93 335i, I'm happy to hear anyone slagging on an F30-generation car and telling me I made the right decision!
And I've spent more time wondering if II should have bought a 328i than a M3. The M3 as a convertible is just too damn heavy. The 335i, ~1 MaintenanceCosts lighter, is fearsome once on the boost but more prone to lag than I expected. It's the first turbo/manual car I've owned and I"m still learning how to drive it.
Just like Kanye West's iconic single Runaway, you need a runway to properly test cars like Top Gear did because the runway is where birds land, and birds are the closest thing we can get to Heaven.
That response to your article, Jack, is a bit poetic because your article is as close to poetry as we are going to get in automotive journalism! You are an artiste.
Yeah, but even the cheap ones expect you to pick them up cigarettes or food on the way over.
To be fair, this didn't become widespread until the two magazines started sharing office space in Ann Arbor. When R&T was in Newport Beach they didn't do it.
Can confirm. America loves liars and con-men.
Not true. No one likes Jonny Lieberman, not even himself.
Ok, I’ll add the proviso that the individual liar and/or con-man can be so noxious and unctuous that America and/or individual Americans can fall out of love with them. I call it the 15 minutes of fame rule.
Those 600+ HP SUVs can be a real hoot in every day driving, but you’re right that in terms of drag strip driving they’re downright boring after a few passes. When you can just WOT the thing and rip off 11 second passes over and over without a whit of skill, you really do start looking in the rear view mirror at the pony car or muscle car you’re trouncing and get the feeling that you’re getting the W while they’re stuck with having the fun.
But on the street, there’s nothing quite like a 2.5+ ton SUV with more horsepower under the hood than is present in most American driveways to make a grown man giggle. No shame in my game, good sir.
Been looking for a spot to squeeze this in:
https://thebacklotart.com/the-adventures-of-corvette-man-comic-series/
Fantastic.
As the owner of an 80s Vette I think that’s great! Never forget it was a “underpowered” Corvette that made off with Rick Allen’s arm. Was probably riotous fun up to that point.
I enjoyed the original sets of old corvette struggle before it started spoofing current culture so much. The Dave one always has me rolling however and knowing what my neighbors must think of me.
Let me clarify that I don’t personally have any UberSUV game. My current utility cube makes a whopping 177 HP. It will drive through the ditches in front of my house with its superior faux wheel drive system, so that’s nice.
I giggle blowing the doors off manly men in loud trucks in a compact EV, knowing that eventually, if they catch up, they just cost themselves the price of a cold brewski.
I got halfway through the first part ready to comment how rollout won’t really effect trap speed but it’s important for ET; until I got to part two haha.
Your last paragraph on “ye who holds the fattest wallet runs the fastest” is basically why I’ve lost most interest in a sport I used to love. I know that’s racing in general but it’s sure sucked alot of challenge from it. Maybe I’d enjoy a spec series - also I can’t stand bracket racing.
That said, a TrackHawk is about as fun to drive as it is impractical, which is very. If I had the means and the care I’d totally grab one as overpriced as they are.
A friend of mine sold his Trackhawk for a Model S Plaid, which I thought was silly.
Wow. He must've been smoking that shit that makes you hallucinate Fat Elvis driving a freight train made of watermelons when he made that decision.
While I also think that’s stupid, I get it. Everyone always wants to be the fastest, which is why this article can exist. My single biggest rant in modern car culture is the pursuit of numbers over emotion or cool. I don’t care if a Plaid is 2 seconds faster, it has the personality of a vacuum cleaner. It’s a very effective appliance.
I realize cars are appliances at the core, but the special ones are built with a certain level of passion. Today, it takes very very little skill to go fast in a straight line. Ultra effective automatic transmissions, traction control systems, and cars that can achieve bonkers performance metrics without having to crack a valve over or a need for ANY mechanical knowledge. It used to mean something to have to build your own hotrod, stripping things to the block and then some.
My rant is that these acts have been dismissed. People correlate numbers with with demanded respect and it’s silly. I don’t blame print media, the internet is 1000x worse. Between 1320 video/ YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, we’ve distilled the culture to a “look at me!” contest.
While I can appreciate the numbers generated by the Plaid, I think it’s FAR more important that enthusiasts feel and appreciate the sheer violence of a TrackHawk launch - even stock. You feel like you’re breaking physics, and between that the noise and attitude is where cool actually lives.
Exceptionally well said. Thank you.
The revelation that automakers were intimately involved with magazine testing and that numbers can’t really be trusted was a crushing blow to a much younger and more naive me, whose favorite day of the month was when the MT and C/D arrived.
Like finding out about Santa all over again.
This is the type of story I’m here for.
I agree with Edmunds, zero to 60 is simply that. Correcting data, whether done by a car magazine or the government, means you are getting something that is not the truth. What should matter is consistency. Do all the testing at the same place. Note the date and temperature and run the tests. Show us the raw numbers. A 0-60 and a half mile trap speed could be knocked out in a morning. I should start my own magazine.
You bring up the problem of comparison. In my mind, many of us enthusiasts just want to put too much stock in it!
If they don't "correct" it then "well that was on a hot day, heat soak blah blah blah" and if they *do* correct it "it's not the actual numbers!" Not that I see a problem either way (other than fudging "correction" intentionally!), it just highlights that you can't satisfy everyone with a single set of data. I think it's legit to want to make an objective test that is as consistent and comparable as you can. One place C&D has been great was the "5-60" test invention. I owned the "4.7 0-60" 2009 WRX! Not in a million years was that a reasonable estimation of how quick that car was, and we all know why. 6.3 5-60, that sounds about right.
Jack is right on about the silliness of caring "what some other guy did"...funny how much this stuff matters, I guess the marketing depts are right on. Reminds me of the new GTIs, the pressers appeared to have been sent out with RE-71Rs mounted! Cuz the buyer isn't going to do his own evaluation, he just wants validation from "the experts" in order to justify the purchase. The GTI on the all-seasons you will be actually purchasing is rather miserable.
Yeeeaah! Some men are also creatures of mud and dirt. Stuff my head full of straw and lean me over the steaming pile!
You had told me in the past that C&D and R&T employed *slightly* different “correction factors,” but I didn’t realize that there was perhaps a sinister underlying motivation…
Assume everything is a scam, and you'll almost always be right.
And a big hit at parties too.
Don't get me wrong, I think the same way as you, but it's a tough role to play.
I'm still learning this. PAINFULLY
I just received a very expensive lesson in this, actually.
Me at a job interivew: "If you're thinking of hiring me because I'm smart, don't expect me to be stupid when you're wrong." If they can't deal with those terms, I'd rather not be working for them. Is it any real surprise that I've been fired from nearly every W2 job that I've ever had? One lasted 2 days, one lasted 22 years but eventually my mouth will wear out my welcome.
That's me, life of the party. You should see how women light up when I tell then my hobbies include measuring.
You think you're a hit with women, do you? Do you have a board certified psychiatrist's diagnosis that you "give off a vibe that repells women"? It's a bit of a dilemma as I like how they feel.
No, but I have a lifetime of experience that says that.
If anyone could have ended up an incel it was me, but I have grandchildren so there's hope for just about anyone.
I vaguely recall reading a piece by the purchaser of an automatic 392 Challenger who defended his choice by stating that by g-force measurement there was a point along the acceleration curve where it out-pulled the Hellcat.
Truth of that statement aside, the sentiment captures perfectly what I want, far more than published times--I want the car that punches me the hardest.
I know from a sample size of one that you can repeatedly drop the clutch at 5k RPM in a 5th gen viper and you’ll break the axle mounts before you break the transmission.
You may extrapolate that data point in any direction you prefer.
Depends on how you define “cool”, really. They each have their charms.
Some dude sold a t-shirt years ago that said "God made Vipers so Vette guys could have heroes."
Really fun to wear to both the gym, and cars and coffees lol
I’ve both. They don’t really compare well. I think the Viper is everything the Corvette WANTS to be, while the Corvette is everything the Viper can’t. The c5 is inherently more fragile, but it’s black slate approach as a performance car is not something to overlook lightly. Buy a c5 for the car you can transform it into, not for what it is. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy mine stock or stock-ish, but the real reward is seeing what they can be capable of.
‘blank* slate’...thanks iPhone.
When I worked at one of my auto mechanic jobs, I did a rear brake job on a 96 Grand Sport.
Like any conscientious mechanic, I HAD to take it for a test drive when I was done...
At the time, it was the fastest car I'd ever driven. Looking out the windshield, accelerating to three times the speed limit, I saw a circle of clarity directly ahead, surrounded by hyperspace.
Didn't even make it to the top of third gear before I had to turn around and head back.
That's probably a Plaid from rest; the supercharged Z06 Corvette was also a contender, particularly with a tune.
I keep buying redneck-built GM G-Bodies and Fox Mustangs with way too much gear and assorted poor engine decisions even though I have a fairly healthy Coyote Mustang. Something about the thrilling panic of slamming a ratchet shifter into second and trying not to float the valves in a rattling deathtrap feels more real.
I love reading this type of intriguing information here and learning the backstory about these magazine shenanigans. But I have to confess I stopped really caring about 0-60 times and quarter mile times back about the time DED Jr. was starting Automobile magazine (the tidbit about him collecting a multi-million dollar bonus was quite interesting). I was very interested in such times when the 5.0 Mustang/Camaro wars were in full swing in the '80s - always hoping the Mustang came out on top (it often didn't). Beyond that, I've more just observed trends over the years ("wow, the Corvettes sure have fast 0-60 times now"), etc. I'm enough of an old farmer driver that I'm more concerned with whether my aging fleet can stay on the road and how can I improve the handling precision of my 54 year old Bronco or my 20 year old Super Duty.
Car & Driver at least, gave off a very strong smell for years of something being amiss with regard to BMWs, and seemed to be BMW's bought-and-paid-for PR arm.
It got so bad that one guy once wrote them letter commending them for not declaring an M3 the winner of their Corvette shootout.
It used to be fun and a little bit interesting to see what cars were able to hit 60 mph in less than 5 seconds. Now there are so many cars that do it in less than 4, and some under 2 and I find that ludicrous and to be honest a little boring. We're supposedly in a golden age of speed and horsepower but it's less fun than it was in 1985 or 1995. Or maybe I'm just an old guy, too...
Performance numbers always struck me as masturbatory because how often will most people achieve anything like them? I have no idea what the numbers are for my fifth-get VFR and my 993, but I can tell you they're quite fast enough for me.
Meh, I always tried to beat them. Cars tend to get faster as they break in, so if you can get decent air and have some skill you most certainly can best the published at times. The hardest ones to beat aren’t the “corrected” times, it’s the second hand magazines running cars at Englishtown In February. The DA is literally negative.
HA ! .
Who'd ever think anyone else would _LIE_ ?! . (snicker)
I need to go find this magical, mythical driveway and see if I can catch anyone having fun on it .
I've sold on all my fast vehicles and anything over 80 on two wheels isn't in my playbook anymore, you'll have to keep riding at 10/10ths and writing about it when you survive .
-Nate
They tore it down years ago, unfortunately!
SAD =8-( .
There used to be thousands of abandoned WWII air strips and concrete pads all over America .
I ass-U-me you've been to 'Slab City' .
-Nate
Well yeah Nate, I just wrote about it here and you commented on it!
More people need to get out and visit this great country America, they'd have their eyes opened I think .
-Nate
Damn, being 14 and running home to read a magazine from cover to cover was so amazing and I felt enlightened after the first read...now I just wonder what matters anymore...
The Great Myth of the Car magazine: That you can build a Car Craft or Sport Compact Car cover car on the precious few coppers you make working some shit retail or restaurant job.
Yep. Same here. My first job at a supermarket, bagging groceries.
Manager had a 91 Camaro.
RS.
To help you appreciate your childhood...
It was just after the war and I was very blessed to be able to afford car magazines just to be able to see pictures and read about these wonderful cars since the only nice car I’d see was a German sedan driven by a gangster
MD was something I only heard in stories and it’ll be years before I had my first BigMac
Eventually my dad struck a deal with the newspaper stand guy that they’d let me read the magazines for free if I return them the next day without damaging anything so needless to say I thought I was the smartest car person in any direction.
Now I find myself in my thirties wondering is anything real and what even matters in todays existence... since the only thing we value (and are apparently willing to sell anything and everything for) is profit.
Vin is stat you 🤣😅
(couldn’t agree more)
Really throwing a wrench in my childhood self's implacable belief in the performance table at the back of the rag.
Thanks! Thanks a lot!
Just trying to dull my own pain by sharing with others; at the age of twelve I had the entire C/D performance page memorized.
Ah, but did you tear out all the pages with ads on both sides first to get through it quicker?
.
.
.
Overheard muttering, 'more fucking floormats.'
"We have more acceleration available to us than ever before. And yet people are less enthusiastic about cars than they’ve ever been."
I hold the magazines largely responsible for this. They create a world where cars win or lose comparisons, and therefore are (along with their owners) respected or mocked, almost exclusively on performance numbers. If you want your car to be taken seriously then it has to be the car that is the fastest regardless of other merits or drawbacks. There's no room for other qualities of cars or for any individualism in car preferences. Every other car in every class has to try to act like a BMW M3, and the M3 itself has to get faster every iteration at all costs, regardless of what that does to it.
This is why the market no longer has soft rides, luxurious materials, or any form of design that is not derived from austere German minimalism. And on the other side of the coin it's why lightweight cars other than Miatas are no longer allowed to be praised and manual transmissions, which have been bad for performance numbers for at least 15 years now, are disappearing.
Occasionally automakers rebel, as in the current interior designs of Lincoln products or the ride/handling equation of the Lexus RX. And when they do, boy do the magazines ever punish them. Make it more like a M3 or force your sales staff to be Sisyphus.
Someone called the M3 a "German Trans Am" around the time it went from a six to an eight and I think that's been the case ever since. The first generation with the turbo six was a simply miserable automobile that couldn't keep its back tires under it on a racetrack.
I don't know if that comparison's fair. If it were, the M3 would be driven by the Teutonic equivalent of a middle-aged Hard Four named Deb on her way to work at Eat N Park.
As someone who just bought an E93 335i, I'm happy to hear anyone slagging on an F30-generation car and telling me I made the right decision!
And I've spent more time wondering if II should have bought a 328i than a M3. The M3 as a convertible is just too damn heavy. The 335i, ~1 MaintenanceCosts lighter, is fearsome once on the boost but more prone to lag than I expected. It's the first turbo/manual car I've owned and I"m still learning how to drive it.
Just like Kanye West's iconic single Runaway, you need a runway to properly test cars like Top Gear did because the runway is where birds land, and birds are the closest thing we can get to Heaven.
That response to your article, Jack, is a bit poetic because your article is as close to poetry as we are going to get in automotive journalism! You are an artiste.