Wednesday, I took in a nice set of the coast’s best back roads, including a lunch at the infamous Alice’s Restaurnt, all with the help of the great people at Club Sportiva.
Being a complete car nut, instead of borrowing one car, I borrowed these 6 examples of driving awesomeness:
#1 The Batmobile
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Blessed Mother of Acceleration, that thing is more than the sum of it’s parts. For all that it looks, with it’s massive motor, massive hood and ridiculous (ridiculously awesome!) gull wing doors.. I expected just it to be a muscle-bound pig. OK, so it is musclebound, but it didn’t feel like a pig. Not in the least! And to the company listed below, it was a pure joy to drive. Reasonably loud. When set in AMG manual mode the shifts were crisp but not abrupt (unlike one of the other cars in the list). This was probably tied with car #6 for the easiest of the lot to drive.
I fully expected this thing to scare me. And considering we’d be ascending the Calamari Highway at pace, I was apprehensive. I mean, if I bin the car, it’s going to cost me (or at least to me) a small fortune to repair or replace. And these guys check these things OVER before they hand off a set of keys.
So.. the car. It’s like sitting in a leather coffin. It’s tight inside. It makes a Cessna 152 Aerobat seem, accommodating. The door sills are pretty thick, and rather high compared to most any other car. Getting in and out can be a little amusing for an observer. Having the gull wing door shut, which feels like it’s 2′ thick, really made me feel sealed in cockpit of sorts, and just a tad claustrophobic. However once that lump in front was lit up and grumbling, I forgot about all that.
Suspension just sucked up the ratty road surface so well, It didn’t feel at all like the bumpy road of my youth. But that smooth driving didn’t come at the cost of a wishy-washy ride, like a couple of the cars I drove today.
Overall, this is one really fun car to drive. It’s refined enough to be a daily driver, and rude enough to be what it is; one super car.
#2 Street Legal Go-Kart
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Wow.. what a HOOT!! It’s not much in the power category (190 HP) but the weight (1900 lbs) more than makes up for it.
Now, talk about cars with high and thick door sills. This is the patron saint of making men look absurd getting in and out of a street car. If the Benz was like being in a 152, this was like being in a Cub. Getting it started is a little odd. You put the key in, click it forward a few notches, then hunt for the START button (only 1 car today didn’t have a start button) way in the upper left.
For the set of cars today, I thought.. meh… they tossed this in as filler. I can’t say I was really excited about the prospect of driving it.
For the leg of the route I had this car, we made the run across the ridge (Skyline Blvd) to Alice’s. This is one of the sections of road things can really be cracked open. It’s very easy to hold a good 70-80 MPG avg. speed for the section, if you’re balls or wallet are big enough.
I lit it up, listened to the big Benz motor sound (I could not hear the Lotus over the Benz), and we set off. I think it took about 5 seconds for me to start grinning like a complete moron. OOOH BOY, this car is FUN! I want one. It reminds me of my old FZR400. Not much power, but light, and makes you feel sporty when you drive it. Did I mention it’s hilariously FUN!??! Banging up and down in the gears, heel-and-toeing the little thing into the corners and back out again.. it’s fun as snot! I’m going to start checking CL for them!!!
It does have a rather nasty bump-steer on corner exit throttle if you hit some nasty pavement. Of all the cars I drove today, this one scared me the most. You have to be ON your game, or going 25 MPH or it feels like it might dart off into the weeds before you can can finishing crapping your pants. It’s that on edge and that tight. You FEEL the road in that thing, in all the best ways!!! If you haven’t driven one in anger…. DO IT!!
#3 The Barge
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Following a great lunch, the next leg was going to be down one of my favorite Nor Cal roads. Highway 84 to the coast. It’s got great sight lines, 100+ sweepers, technical banked (properly banked) turns… through the rain forest and to the coast. It’s a driver’s (or rider’s) road. And I had what I can only guess is made of neutron materials, for a car. :/ Can’t win them all.
Then I started to drive it, really drive it. Once I pushed it out of auto mode in to tiptronic mode and was able to use the downshifting on corner entry instead relying on the brakes, I reeled the Lotus in with ease.
Wait.. no, not a typo.. yes it’s big, yes it’s fat, (yes it’s big and fat) but wow the motor in that thing must have been stolen from an cargo ship. It’s a monster. Not a fire breathing monster, but a torque shooting out your kiester and never wanting to stop monster. Speeds in excess of ….. were easy, on that road, a road that I nearly never ride my bike on that fast. It’s not a sports car, I know that, and it should royally stink but damn.. if I was old, like in my 40’s or something and needed a luxo-barge… this would most likely get the nod!!! The specs say it has almost 500 ft./lb. of torque and yeah.. OH YEAH!! … I say BRING IT!!
So it turned out that this one favorite part of the road, was enjoyed by a really pretty freaking fun car!!!
At the base of Hwy 84, we headed south on 1 to Pescadero State Beach where performed the next swap. Just as we arrived 2 bus loads of local kids were visiting the beach on a science field trip. The boys were going bonkers checking out the cars, taking pictures with their cell phones (these are like 9-11 y.o. kids.. what are they doing with smart phones!??!).
We give them some extra revs on the way out and manged to put in some WTO runs down 1 before turning up Pescadaro back to the top of the mountain. This is another fantastic piece of road!!. This time on one of the finest sounding cars of the bunch..
#4 Bond, James Bond.
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OK, it’s not a DB9. They sold that one because it was too sloppy feeling. Maybe the DB9 coupe is better but the DB9 vert was supposedly a not mess. And frankly… and this was the biggest disappointment of my day, so was the Vantage. The body didn’t feel especially loose, but the car was nervous, and not in a good way. No matter what I did, what adjustment I made to the nannies, how I brakes and exited corners, I just COULD NOT get this car to handle like I wanted it too. It just felt out of sorts. Now, it could have been the tires, having just been replaced with Hankooks. Most of the cars are on PS2s, except the Bently was on some Continental tire.
Digressing… the sound from this car was FANTSTIC! The exhaust baffles are opened up, so it’s loud, proud and makes an intoxicating sound. And the single clutch computer controlled manual trans (like the BMW SMG) was really fun and responsive, and shifted like a human would shift, not really smooth at all. It had a very nice firm engagement on the up-shift. Maybe my Bimmers clutch is going, or my SMG needs to be re-programmed, but I liked this Aston’s trans a lot.
What I was not so much impressed by was the very obvious lack of power. It really needed the bigger Aston mill with at minimum 500 HP to make this worth the $$$ to me. I have to say.. this car is really making me re-evaluate my desire for an Aston Martin down the road. I was hoping a Vantage would be so much more. Of all the cars today, this is the only one that scared me, really scared me into thinking I could easily bin it, and not because it had too much power! Color me more than a little bummed.
#5 Italian for WT*?!?
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Having returned to Alice’s, I jumped in the next car. This is the only one that I could hear over the Benz. Also uncorked a bit, and the only other row-your-own manual trans in the lot, outside the Lotus. I was a little apprehensive about driving this car, after the bitter disappointment with the Aston. I figured a vaunted marque would once again, show it’s flaws.
And I was not far off the mark, it’s flawed. It’s heavy (ish), It’s old-school manual… AND IT’S A BLOODY RIOT!! OHHHH MY GOD. damn damn damn damn DAMN.
Almost any day I’ll take lucky over good. And this time I was putting my butt in one of the hottest cars of the bunch, for a return run on Hwy 35. And, I had nobody holding me up. 😀 We rocketed along the ridgeline at ludicrous speed. Well, maybe more ludicrous noise than speed. Of all the cars today, this one hit every note you want for an exotic.
- Looks great
- Sounds great
- Goes like raped ape
- Crude
- Rude
- Socially unacceptable.
I fell in looooove. She’s not perfect. In fact this car also put me on edge. Much like the Lotus, it’s tight, stiff, had really noticeable bump-steer, real manual trans, NO rear visibility, it’s about 8′ wider at the rear than the front (or so it seems when you’re worried about dinging wheels that cost about as much as I pull down in a month). Aside from a close call with a pair of bambies, the driving experience was exhilarating!!
The car has no practical purpose. None. Zero. There is no place to put anything in the passenger box. The frunk is smaller than the glove-box on my old Miata, and there is NOTHING for storage to the rear, unlike other exotics I’ve examined. It’s just… a car. A small, low, wide, exhilarating Italian car. The thing feels like it has a soul. The soul of Satan but a soul none the less. This car put a serious case of smiles on my face!!!
The motor was super responsive. Re-reving the motor to coax it into a missed gear, was super easy. It was hard to drive, in just about every good way possible. If I’d had to pick from one of these cars.. it would be up there with the SLS and the next one….
#6 Godzilla
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Straight up. I’m not a big fan of Japanese anything (wait, I take that back, Yamaha is an exception). I’d read the articles, heard the rumors, listened to Klick-and-Klak blather on about the $1000 it costs just for the transmission fluid. It was the closeout car of the day. It’s quiet, it’s big, it’s not at all flashy. It’s like an appliance.
Like a twin-turbo charged fire breathing video game from hell is more like it. It’s easy to start. It’s really comfortable. It has 4 seats, and a truck that can old more than a 1/2 PB&J sandwich. The array of electronic doo-dads is mind numbing. 5 custom display screens with boost, temps, G’s, TPS. YOU NAME IT!! It’s any 10-year old video gamer’s dream. And it’s FAST AS ****.
I’d been warned. When those turbos really start to spool, things start happening fast. My God, of all the vehicles, only the Benz was close with off-throttle torque awesomeness. Despite being a “little” V6 she just about stole the show!
If you want super-car fun on a budget, and also be able to get kids to school and carry a week’s load of groceries.. and you’re on a “budget”. I don’t know how you could go wrong with this thing. WOOO LORDY!!
Popped the trans in race mode, set the suspension to normal (not comfort or race), selected some house music on the sat radio and set about chasing the Lambo down Hwy 9. OK.. so you just gotta let the statement sink in a bit.
Chasing a Gallardo, down the amazing Hwy9, in a GTR.
That.. for me, was almost as epic as hot-lapping Laguna the weekend before! Chasing a dream car, down a road I grew up learning to drive on, while in a car that would murder the Lambo in a drag race while eating sushi.
Oh my… I must say. That as some of the most grin-inducing 5 hours of driving I’ve every done! My how the world has changed for me since I moved back to CA!! 😀
Conclusion:
I’m going to do this again. Next time I’m taking one of the kids with me. One dad had taken his 11 y.o. out of school to do this today. It was his birthday… talk about a kick-ass BD present. At least I think it was!
I realize most of you have been buried with my non-stop picture posts from today… well, all I can say is…. meh.. I was excited, I love cars. so sue me.. 😀
Oh.. and to answer the question.. if I had to pick one of these cars…. which one would it be?
Well, I did have to pick, because I can only drive one car at a time… so I picked this one. She matches my Ducati nicely, NO?
I do have to return it tomorrow…. but the entire family sure had some fun when I got home!! Miranda was the first to take a ride up Hwy9 (which started 1/2 mile from our house.. which.. is sorta nice in itself) with me. Then AJ, and finally Deb went for a ride. Wow.. she had the biggest grin on her face as I ripped that thing up through the gears. WOOOO!!!! I think that if I manage to buy one, she’s not going to complain one freaking bit!!! But.. I don’t see that happening any time soon. Until then, I’ll just keep borrowing them. I think I’m going to grab the SLS next. 😀
A bunch more snapshots
Here are a bunch more snapshots from today!
