It is a little bit like showing breasts at a plastic surgeon congress: At the annual meeting of the JSAE, the Japanese version of the Society of Automotive Engineers, Subaru totally disrobed its BRZ and shows it to a strictly professional audience.

According to a quick image search on Google, this would be the first time that the drive train of the Hachi-Roku has been shown without disturbing sheet metal.

The professional audience was impressed. Back home at the office, the engineers work on electric motors, or hybrid drives, so seeing a boxer engine was a bit like vintage porn, professional meeting or not.

The 2012 JSAE Annual Congress began today at the Pacifico in Yokohama. It lasts through Friday, May 25. If you hop on a plane now, then you will be able to brag that you saw a naked  Hachi-Roku in the flesh.

(Want a screen saver with belts and pulleys? There are high resolution versions of the pictures in the gallery.)

In the summer of 1989, I was ten going on eleven. The fastest car I had yet ridden in was probably my dad’s 535i, clocked by the CHiP at well over the tonne, a ticket which the patriarch of the family talked himself out of with a “Not bad, right?”

It was hard to say if I really cared about cars yet: obviously they were important to my dad, and I’d already learned to drive our Series III Land Rover at walking pace on the banks of the Fraser River, but there were new Pirate sets coming from Lego, and G.I. Joe had just released a barely-disguised SR-71 Blackbird for the Cobra forces. Sean Connery had joined Harrison Ford in a quest for the Holy Grail. A friend had just gotten the new, side-scrolling Zelda Game.

The world was full of simple distractions for a young man: Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, E.T. and Ewoks, Yop bottles filled with vinegar and baking soda, Thundercats and Space Quest III.

Then, one day, in the basement of a Ladysmith home, I climbed behind the wheel of a 16-bit Porsche 959 and the whole world changed. I was exposed to the founding tenet of automotive enthusiasm.

What? The supercar? Don’t be daft, I’m talking about arguing.

These days, the realism of the racing simulator is beyond reproach. Should I wish to take up the heft of my brother’s Xbox controller, I can accurately experience everything (apart from g-forces) from a ’66 Lotus Cortina to a Pagani Zonda.

Forget chunky polygons and 8-bit pixelation, now you can get electronically close to actually owning a rare/exotic/performance car without any of the drawbacks: no depreciation, no maintenance, no risk.

Back in the day, I had previously dabbled in some top-down Spy-Hunter, but certainly nothing that felt like actual driving. Suddenly, there I was, in the cockpit of one of two supercars. Either the Porsche 959 or the Ferrari F40.

I always took the 959. Darcy always took the F40.

It’s hard to imagine a purer rivalry than the battle between the Über-Porsche and the Primo Ferrari; a bit like watching Zeus and Poseidon step into the octagon while Hades (the Countach) looks on.

The pair of twin-turbo rockets were as different as chalk and cheese: one a high-tech, AWD, all-weather point-to-point blitzkrieg that only needed a set of off-road tires to go roaring across the desert; the other a ferociously stripped-out racecar, as fast, uncompromising and dangerous as a Peregrine falcon in full stoop.

The F40, twenty-five years old this year, is obviously my favourite now. Anyone can climb behind the wheel of a 959, but to drive the F40 in anger requires balls so large you probably have your extra-roomy underpants tailor-made, and a wallet so gargantuan you’d need to hire someone to carry it around for you. In a wheelbarrow.

Even now, the things these Olympians are capable of command respect. The family cars of today are twice as fast as they were in 1987, but the cream of modern supercar royalty is perhaps only a half-step quicker.

More important though, to my mind, is the fact that the answer to the question, “What’s the best car in the world?” had just two answers, and you could make a case for either of them. This resulted in a lot of arguing over which was best and ten-year-old me preferred the 959′s superior (in-game, anyway) grip and off-the-line acceleration to the Ferrari’s top speed and mid-range advantage.

Sure, there was stuff like the RUF Yellowbird and the original ZR-1, and the Turbo Esprit and then later the Diablo would show up and further muddy the waters. But for me, it seemed like there were only two choices, two sides of the same how-fast-can-we-go coin.

I’m not sure we’ll see a rivalry like it again. There’s a whole pantheon of demi-gods vying for the laurels these days. I suppose you could make the argument that the Veyron is still king of the hill, but something about that car leaves me a bit cold.

Still, there are plenty of excellent arguments to be had at any level you choose. Which will be better, the Mini Cooper S or the Veloster Turbo? Pick your pony-car, Mustang or Camaro (or pantomime palomino like the Challenger)? Alphagetti fight: C63 or M3 or Stasis-equipped S4?

The Porsche 911 / Nissan GT-R battle seems a bit forced; a bit more of a PR move (because it is) and less organic than Corvette/911 comparisons. But it too is something that people will happily argue about for hours.

It’s quite amusing to watch how this works on Facebook, which chronicles these “discussions” quite well. Somebody posts a picture of, say, a new 991 that they’ve spotted, someone else chimes in that they’d rather have two older air-cooled models for the money, and then thirty comments in and we’ve got a vote for a Citroën SM, a Cayman R and a Cosworth-prepped Subaru (that’d be me).

Q: when did the first automotive race take place? A: after the second car was built. Were this old chestnut true, there’d probably be a group of guys arguing over which was better, the new technology of this second car, or the purer feel of the original.

You need only look at the lively discussion that erupts in the comments on Murilee’s Time Machine Dilemma posts to see what good fun this can be. And you need only log on to any brand-specific automotive forum to see how things can go horribly wrong in that good ol’ SOMEONE IS WRONG ON THE INTERNET sort of way.

So, over to you then. What’s your lottery-ticket/desert-island whip? Any time-period, any car. As the Kaiser Chiefs would say, I predict a riot.

Golf GTI Cabriolet. After its world premiere at the Geneva Motor Show, GTI enthusiasts can ogle the topless Golf from up close. The 2.0 liter engine makes 210 hp, nearly double the 110 hp of the first GTI. The hot hatch is sits on American shoes. 17-inch alloys of type ‘Denver’ are standard, 18-inch wheels of type ‘Detroit’ are optionally available.

Polo WRC Street:  At Wörthersee, Volkswagen will be presenting for the first time a preview of an extremely sporty small series, which is due to be launched in late 2013. Comes with a  220 hp 2.0 liter TSI.

Polo R-WRC: A road-going prototype for the FIA World Rally Championship. The “hottest Polo ever” as Volkswagen R&D chief Ulrich Hackenberg called it, sports a 1.6 liter TSI engine with approximately 300 hp. Jeez.

GTI Black Dynamic: Built by Volkswagen apprentices who like disco. Features a 1,800 Watt sound system with nine loudspeakers, which take up the entire trunk.

Golf GTI ‘White Concept’: According to the press release, “the attractive design study Golf GTI ‘White Concept’ is characterized by its remarkable ‘Oryx White matt’ paintwork.”  Then, they forgot to send pictures in white and sent Scirocco R ConceptBlue pictures instead. Color me confused.

To put you in the mood, here is a video clip from last year. If you hurry, you can still get the tail end of the GTI Meet. It lasts through Saturday the 19^th. Go to Munich, head south, follow the crowd.

Today, I happened to be at Toyota’s Tokyo headquarters in order to personally get to the bottom of numbers nobody seems to care about. There was a minor riot in the usually zen-like lobby of 1-4-18 Koraku, Bunkyo-ku.  TTAC was there to investigate …

Toyota employees, who usually pass the cars on display in the reception area without the slightest hesitation, rushed to a matte-black Lexus LFA parked near the entrance. One woman touched the car as if it was a sacred object.

Another man impulsively checked himself. It is hot again in Tokyo, and people start to perspire. “Do I also?” asked this man before he approached the black car.

The matte-black LFA looked like any other $375,000 supercar Lexus makes in Motomachi. Except …

This is a used car!  A used car in Toyota’s holy halls? It looks new to you? Have a look at this:

Spend some time in Japan, and you will run into the dreaded Shaken sticker.  Shaken is the third degree the Japanese government gives people’s cars after three years when the cars are new, and then every two, to make sure that the cars are in working order, allegedly. The examination is so expensive and so rigorous that many Japanese rather buy a new car, much to the joy of the Japanese car industry. Most Japanese prefer “pika-pika” (new and shiny) over “boro-boro” (old and tired) anyway.

Now, for some Shaken arcana. The Shaken sticker of the matte black LFA expires in December of the 25^th year of the current Heisei period of Emperor Akihito. Heisei 25 equals 2013, deduct three years …. OMG, this car was registered in December of 2010!

This makes it one of the first cars of the very limited 500 car production run of the LFA.  Production of the LFA started in December 2010. Who owns that rare used car?

Discreet inquiries produced the suggestion that the owner of the used car works at Toyota. It is Akio Toyoda, President of Toyota. The suspicion was confirmed when a polite lady approached the crowd, bowed, and said:

“Sumimasen, he needs his car back.”

PS: The image quality may not be up to TTAC standards. The pictures were taken with my cellphone, and my hands were shaken …

Two years after the Volkswagen Golf was launched, it received a fuel sipping diesel in 1976. I presented the launch campaign in Wolfsburg, and the ground shook. It wasn’t because of my campaign. It was because of the body stamping presses. The offices of the Zentrale Absatzförderung, VW’s advertising department, were two floors above.

I presented a campaign that was all on savings. The Golf D had one of the, if not the best mileage of all compacts. Herr Plamböck, the gentleman who had to vet the campaigns before the big boss would see them, looked at my grand savings plan, and said: “Let’s have lunch.”

Over a Currywurst, Hartmut Plamböck said: “Bertel, did you check the added cost of that engine?” I forgot how much it was, but it was a lot. “You will have to drive 80,000 kilometers to get your money back!” Mr. Plamböck thundered. The plastic forks jumped as Plamböck pounded the table. He looked around, lowered his voice and added: “And then, the engine will fall out of the car.” At that time, Volkswagens had a bit of a corrosion problem.

I was reminded of that story when I came across a story in the New York Times that provides a sanity check on savings at all costs. Rarely does one recoup the added investment into fuel savings. Little has changed since my Wolfsburg Waterloo. Fuel savings come at a price, and you have to decide whether you pay at the pump or to the dealer. Paying at the pump makes more economic sense, but more often than not, emotions trump math.

One of the worst investments, says the New York Times story that uses data compiled by TrueCar, is the Chevrolet Volt. Says the Times:

“The Volt, which costs nearly $40,000 before a $7,500 federal tax credit, could take up to 27 years to pay off versus a Chevrolet Cruze, assuming it was regularly driven farther than its battery-only range allows. The payback time could drop to about eight years if gas cost $5 a gallon and the driver remained exclusively on battery power.”

Mind you, the 27 year payback time is based on the TrueCar calculated $31,767 price of the Volt. Without the generous government rebate, financed by your tax dollars, the Volt would still be upside down long after it landed in a museum. At full retail, it would take 45 years to get you your money back. Payback is a bitch.

Driven fully on battery power, the Volt would needlessly drag around its heavy range extender machinery, but at least it would compete with Nissan’s LEAF in the ROI race. The Leaf takes 8.7 years to recoup the investment.

According to the study, “eco” upgrades usually are not worth the money. A Ford Fiesta SFE saves you $23 a year at the pump and on average. With these meager savings, the Fiesta actually beats the Volt in the senseless savings discipline. It would take 26.8 years to get you your money back.

As long as fuel saving cars carry huge premiums, you need to pray for higher gas prices, and you need to pray a lot. A survey by Lundberg says that gas prices need to go to $12.50 a gallon for the Volt to break even. The Leaf would be competitive with gas at $8.53 a gallon.

Are there savings that make sense?

If you really want to reconcile eco and economics, the sixth generation descendant of the Golf Diesel, the Jetta TDI,  would recoup the added money before the warranty is up, says the Times. So do the Lincoln MKZ Hybrid and the Toyota Prius. Not only is their mileage much better than the comparison model, their price premium is so low that it can be easily recouped. As Toyota’s Satoshi Ogiso demonstrated a few months ago,  savings at no added costs are the true engineering achievement.

(Hat tip to my man in the mountains.)

Not to have another stab at the best “production, street-legal” Nordschleife lap time.  That’s not why they are trading the chilly Eifel for balmy Yokohama. Allegedly, Nissan does not want to work on the 7:24:22 lap time.

Instead, says GT-R program director Kazutaka Mizuno:

“We want to try something new this year. Just as important as performance improvement is, we must be confident about the reliability and durability of the car. This is the reason we chose to enter the 24 Hours Nürburgring: to perform harsher endurance tests for future performance improvements.”

That’s not the really new part. The truly new part is that the GT-R won’t be piloted by professional Nismo racers, but exclusively by members of the GT-R engineering team. Let’s see how that works out.

Here is some intentional (or not) intrigue: The GT-R’s best Nordschleife time stands at 7:24:22. However, Mizuno-san says in the video:

“From the 2007 model’s lap time of 7 minutes 38 seconds, this car achieves one lap of the Nordschleife in around 7 minutes 20 seconds.”

Something better than 7:20 would bring the GT-R back into the game. I’m sure the new Viper will be back. Possibly, Lexus could want to celebrate the 500th and last LF-A  with something better than 7:14. And while everybody is at the Ring anyway …

Since the early days of the Volt, the folks at GM loved to compare the car to putting a man on the moon. That analogy wasn’t without its problems. The moon program did cost more than three times its original budget of $7 billion, all it produced was a few rocks, and it ran out of money before it could get going in earnest. 40 years after Eugene Cernan and Apollo 17, the moon has remained untouched by human feet. But what the heck, GM loves the symbolism. To death.

GM likened the Volt to the moonshot in 2008.

GM likened the Volt to the moonshot in 2011.

They did it one more time in 2011.

A few days ago, the director of GM’s moon program, Bob Lutz, was at it again with his favorite moon analogy. Except that this time, Lutz asks readers to remember the “45th anniversary of the Apollo 1 disaster that killed three of our hero astronauts.”

I am old enough to remember that Chaffee, White and Grissom were killed by an electrical fire. Maybe that moon analogy wasn’t so good.

Or maybe it was.

“What to call these?” tweeted @edmunds.com. “Dudemobiles? Guy Cars? Testosteroners?” And they linked to their scientifically prepared list of the cars with the most men as buyers. Not a list compiled by basement dwellers, but by Polk. The list reflects total purchases made in 2011. And we are counting down …

Number 10: Chevrolet Corvette. 86.9 percent males. Pictured above. At number 10, it practically counts as a girl car on this manly list.

Number 9: Ford F-Series. 87.0 percent males. Only number 9? F as in effeminate?

Number 8: GMC Sierra. 87.5 percent males. Now scientifically proven, more manly than a Ford truck.

Number 7: Nissan GT-R. 87.9 percent males. Carlos Ghosn drives one. That skews the stats.

Number 6: Porsche 911. 88.2 percent males. Because skirts ride up in these cars – German ingenuity.

Number 5: Ferrari California. 88.4 percent males. Driving one grows hair on your chest.

Number 4: Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG. 90.0 percent males. Even looks like a … guy.

Number 3: Audi R8. 91.4 percent males. This stat will drive Sindelfingen boinkers.

Number 2: BMW 1 Series M Coupe. 92.2 percent males. This stat causes uproar in Munich: “An Einser? Whats wrong with our Sexer?”

And the winner is:

Number 1: Ferrari 458 Italia. 95.3 percent males. Cazzo!

(Can someone open the window? It smells like a locker room.)

I really did swap out back-boxes like Jack cycles through guitars, desiring both an uncorking of the rumble produced by a flat-four with unequal-length headers, yet without the yobbish blatting of some angled oil-barrel. A straight STi swap? Nope, all the metallic unpleasantness of chomping tinfoil. The Borla Hush? Stealthy in looks only, but drones like Ben Stein playing the didgeridoo.

If you’re interested, I ended up with a 2.5” single-tip Maddad Whisper, a fine, US-made piece of engineering which I paid through the nose for. Worth every penny though: just enough bass at idle to flip my on-switch, crest 4K in the rev department and suddenly Nicky Grist is calling out the pace notes.

And here’s the thing, of all the facets of the motorcar that are constantly being refined and improved and modernized, it’s the sound I’ll miss the most.

Now, don’t get me wrong, the rest of my car isn’t as tuneful as the exhaust. There are more groans, squeaks and rattles than – well, than something that wouldn’t be possible if not for the invention of Viagra. And the wind-noise, ye gods! You’d get less buffeting rounding Cape Horn in a two-decker Napoleonic frigate.

But it’s all part of the experience: while the visceral tug of lateral or accelerative/decelerative g-forces are what generate a physical connectedness with a car, it’s the sound of the thing that really sparks the emotional connection. The feel, if you’ll allow some pretty puffy-shirted poetic license, of your horse breathing under you.

I felt a great sadness to learn of the new M5′s Active Sound Design, whereby the stereo will contribute simulated engine noise to the tomb-like silence of the cabin. I read this technical tidbit with the sort of dismay one might experience upon hearing that Mark Knopfler had embraced auto-tune.

There is no doubt that the twin-turbo V8 is the new king of the hill when it comes to motivating whichever flavour of teutonic boulevard-strafer you might prefer. But since when does an M5 need the aural equivalent of a foil-wrapped zucchini for added stage presence?

And then there’s the latest Merc’ Hammer. Yes it now has enough torque to strangle a humpback-whale, but at what cost? Even at idle, the old 6.2L engine burbles like the borborygmi of Cthulhu, and when prodded with a violent downshift barks like a stabbed Allosaur.

I feel a great disturbance coming, as though a million cylinders have cried out in anger and are being silenced by five catalytic converters, three resonators, two mufflers and a pair of electrically controlled baffles. Is the future a place where rock n’ roll is truly dead and all we’ll hear is the pious hum of a range-extended EV?

Probably not, at least not too soon. I’ve just finished up with a MINI Cooper S Coupe, and while it’s truly a wretched-looking little car, its tendency to parp with such cheerily enthusiastic flatulence on lift-throttle applications couldn’t help but charm. And then there’s the GLI which, as mentioned, is note-perfect.

Be it the psssst of a excess turbo pressure being vented to atmo, or the *clack* of shutting the door on a 993, or the frenzied howl of Vtec kicking in, yo, what’s your favourite auto-related audio?

Says Brett Smith, CAR’s co-director of conferences:

“Some could look at this as the industry is dead and no one cares about this anymore.”

Not completely true, says  Smith. The newness of plug-in vehicles is wearing off, and with the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid and the Nissan Leaf EV on the market, “we don’t need the message of how they will fit in. They’ve got to live or die on their own.”

According to AN, “car companies are seeking to distance themselves” from electric vehicles. CAR also has lost interest. The Business of Plugging In conference won’t return for 2013 either, Smith told AN, claiming “that CAR knew from the beginning it would have a finite life span.”

Video killed the radio star. And the Internet is about to kill the auto industry. Researchers at the University of Michigan noted a disturbing trend: More young adults would rather surf the web than cruise the highway.  In a new study, Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle of the U-M Transportation Research Institute found that a higher proportion of Internet users is associated with fewer drivers licenses among young persons.

It is a worldwide trend. Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Sweden, Norway and South Korea have seen similar declines over time.

About 94 percent of Americans in their 20s had a driver’s license in 1983. In 2008, that number had dropped to about 84 percent.

You heard it yourself. When Obama is out of office, he’ll buy a Chevrolet Volt and drive it himself. The Secret Service, which famously wouldn’t let Obama drive the Volt down the Hamtramck assembly line, generally protects the President for up to 10 years after they leave office – we’d assume that the “no driving” clause applies here. So Obama’s Volt may sit for a long time – hopefully it won’t brick.

Meanwhile, the DoE’s projection of 120,000 Volts produced in 2012 (let alone sold to consumers) still looks a little optimistic. GM just restarted production of the car a few days ago. Their sales target of 45,000 in 2012 has been abandoned after coming 2,300 units short of their 10,000 unit goal in 2011. GM now says that they will adjust “supply to meet demand”.

Interestingly, one of the most expensive cars of all times, the Bugatti Veyron, landed on rank 100. Which is the Edmunds way of saying that it is butt-ugly. The Volkswagen CC, a Pontiac Grand Am, even a Chrysler Town & Country are considered prettier.

While Volkswagen is devastated by the verdict, which cars are the absolute rulers in Edmunds’ beauty pageant?

The absolute ruler of the list, the most beautiful of the most beautiful, is the 1974 Lamborghini Countach LP400. The car that was launched when the first Golf was launched shares its hard creases. Solace for snubbed Volkswagen: Lamborghini belongs to Wolfsburg now.

The second-most beautiful car according to Edmunds is the 1931 Duesenberg Model J Long Wheelbase Coupe. Too bad they don’t make it anymore. Wait! Don’t mention that to the Chinese!

Third on the podium: 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO. If I’d be into car porn, that’s the car I would use for … going to the bathroom.

The full list can be found here.

We advance into adulthood by degree, and every one of the degrees is a first time that cannot be duplicated or get a do-over, no matter how much we would like to change our personal history. So we romanticize the clumsy moments and brash decisions of youth as we get older and view our teenaged pasts in a nice golden hue. It may shave several layers of reality off the actual events but it makes our younger years more glamorous and heroic in a Paul Simon ‘Kodachrome’ kind of way.

One thing that never changes in my memories is my first car. We should remember our first cars with the same degree of reverence as other really big first time events from our youth. The kind not found on the pages of a collector car website.

However that first car led in a meandering path to those other big first events in young lives, because a car is the first tangible moment of freedom that you get in life. A car is the first step toward adulthood because it requires a sense of responsibility to own and drive a car.

The main appeal of a first car is the moment when you get behind the wheel and drive to any destination of your choice. You can choose any road that you want on the way, preferably the kind that interests a 16 year old female crowd when you are a newly minted 16 year male driver.

My first car was a 1954 Austin A-40 that I bought for 50 bucks off my brother-in-law after he purchased one of those new-fangled Datsun 510s as a second car. It was the fall of 1971 and I was the proud owner of my first car; an underpowered British sedan with minimal heat, power and brakes. I was thrilled with the idea of my first car-even a pretty un-cool car by early 70s high school standards.

The first thing I addressed on the car was the cool factor as visualized by a 16 year old kid with a limited budget. My older brother got involved in a trunk lid transformation that turned the rectangular trunk lid into a perfect British flag via careful masking and paint cans. It would later become the only reason that I got anybody to buy the Austin, and clearly the buyer was not from Northern Ireland in 1972.

I decided that the leather interior needed a spruce-up so I bought some Mac-Tac and put a cheap psychedelic pattern over the door panels. Remember, 16 year old mind at work here folks.

So I pretty much had it covered cosmetically, but I soon faced my first hurdle after I was faced with a bad cylinder head and a big repair bill. I got the job done by a local rebuilder who was saddled with my daily visits to their shop because I really wanted to get back behind the wheel.

It took almost a month for them to do the job, which is approximately a century in high school time. Then I took the project over to a buddy’s parents’ place because it was winter and they had a heated garage.

His father was also a plumber who dispensed some plumber advice for an automotive project: use gasket glue on the head gasket. It had predictable results when anti-freeze began to spray out of the non-seal.

Luck was on my side when a small garage in town had the last Austin head gasket in town because I had already purchased the second last gasket from him.

He told me not to listen to plumbers when it came to cars and we put the last head gasket in town on the Austin in my buddy’s garage-without the gasket glue. It worked and I was finally on the road again.

The winter of 1971-72 was a brutal one in my town. It was extremely cold and no place to drive a British car with no heat and questionable brakes, but I loved every minute of the short time behind the wheel of that car.

My English teacher called me “The 10 o’clock scholar” because I was always about ten minutes late for class so that I could avoid any traffic jams at the bottom of a long hill with two high schools in a one-block radius. I was unwilling to test my limited driving skills and those spongy brakes against heavy traffic.

One bitterly cold night I was stopped by the police. He could see that my car was completely frosted up, but I didn’t see his lights, so he hit the siren to get my attention. I pulled the car gently to the curb and into a snow window to slow me down so I didn’t have to pump the brakes.

He was impressed with my ability to use an ice scraper on the inside of my windshield, but he strongly suggested that I wait until warmer weather (called Chinooks in my neck of the woods) before I again drove the car.

I didn’t have the car very long because it blew up on a highway in January 1972. I was push starting my future sister-in-law’s Volvo automatic and it required serious speed that frigid night. I got us up to 70 mph, the Volvo started, and the Austin breathed its last because of a bent piston rod. The death rattle meant the end of a brief fling between me and the Austin.

The car and I parted ways when I sold it to a cynical biker type who subsequently became a legendary airbrush artist for murals on vehicles and bikes. I like to think that my British flag trunk inspired him.

I never really forgot the little Austin and I have looked at a few of them over the years. The decision not to buy one has always been tempered an obvious reality: you can’t replace the first one – in most things from youth.

For more of J Sutherland’s work go to mystarcollectorcar.com

These days the big kids on the block are giant pickup trucks and luxury model sport utility vehicles. A bygone era in Detroit featured giant cars with giant engines and painfully small mpg ratings.

The movement toward big and beautiful really caught fire in the late 50s when the Big Three fought a size-really-matters battle with their high end luxury models.

Purists would argue that high end pre-war cars were pioneers in the giant automobile craze, and they would be right. But the big car era became pretty main-stream until the 1973 oil embargo swung the size-matters pendulum the other way.

Even then, the big car managed to limp into the eighties as a regular production vehicle for the large and tall customer, or the senior who had yet to discover bungalow-sized diesel-pusher motorhomes.

But the experience behind the wheel of an old-school land yacht should be mandatory for every car guy-young and old. If these babies were good enough for the underworld broken noses chasing Jimmy Rockford around the greater LA region, then they are good enough for the average Joe in today’s collector car world.

The biggest drawback for today’s younger drivers is the sheer size of the beasts. They like a car that can dance through traffic while they text, watch a movie, check out the latest tattoo creeping closer to their face, and listen to an MP3 file. They are unfamiliar with the idea of a wallowing ride and 8 tracks that work at least 65 percent of the time. And massive weight coupled with drum brakes that made drivers pay strict attention to the road.

The big boys were really made for the open road where living room comfortable seats made the front seat seem like a plush couch with a windshield and steering wheel in front of it.

It made for a great driving experience – one that should be shared by every driver at some point in life. Just make sure to tee up a Doobie Brothers 8 track with ‘Rockin down the Highway’ on it for the journey. Then it will make complete sense.

For more of Jim Sutherland’s work go to mystarcollectorcar.com

Where is global warming when we need it? Europe has been hit by a gigantic blizzard, and the Grüne Hölle of the Nürburgring has been converted into the Weisse Hölle. What happens when hell freezes over shows this clip by Spiegel TV.

So what about Chrysler’s halftime ad? You know, the one with a Clint Eastwood who looked like he would die on the set? It did not show up in any of the Edmunds.com rankings. It is neither on the “that ad’s the bomb!” list. Nor is it on the list of ads that bombed. Maybe because Edmunds could not find the car. Car? What car? The ad tried really hard to repeat the “Imported from Detroit” success. Instead, the ad created a lot of controversy. Controversy? The [forbidden word] hit the fan! It might cost Obama the election!

A lot of people mistook it for a political ad. Chrysler Group Chairman and CEO Sergio Marchionne had to quickly refute the rumor on a Detroit talk radio program:

“It had zero political content. I think we need to be careful, and God knows I can’t stop anybody from associating themselves with the message. But it was not intended to be any type of political overture on our part.”

After Karl Rove, former top political aide to President George W. Bush, said that this is tantamount to “using tax dollars to buy corporate advertising,” the White House had to deny that the ad was a “I give you Chrysler, you help me getting re-elected” deal.  After claiming that all the ad wants to do is “sell cars” (what cars?), White House press secretary Jay Carney went on to say:

“It does point out a simple fact, which is that the automobile industry in this country was on its back, and potentially poised to liquidate three years ago, and this president made decisions that were not very popular at the time that were guided by two important principles: One, that he should do what he could to ensure that 1 million jobs would not be lost; and two, that the American automobile industry should be able to thrive globally if the right conditions were created, and that included the kinds of reforms and restructuring that Chrysler and GM undertook in exchange for the assistance from the American taxpayer.”

So there. Marchionnegate off the table.

Leave it to what Wikipedia calls “an American neoconservative^[2][3][4][5] opinion magazine^[6]” to light one hell of a fire under the ad. The Weekly Standard found out that Detroit’s comeback ad was – are you ready for this –not filmed in Detroit. Really. The Weekly Standard cites Chrysler spokeswoman Dianna Gutierrez who admitted:

“Yes, part of it was filmed in New Orleans . . . and some was filmed in various parts—such as Los Angeles.”

Shockingly, Gutierrez is quoted as saying that the tunnel scenes were taken at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the stadium shots were in New Orleans. According to the Weekly Standard, stock footage of Detroit was used:

“Asked whether any part of the ad was filmed in Detroit, Gutierrez said that previously taken footage from various parts of the Motor City was used. No image of Detroit was shot for the specific use in this ad.”

Now THAT is a juicy scandal. Who needs allegedly illegal; campaign contributions if we have THAT? Fake Detroit! Two hours after the Weekly Standard, Fox News was on the story, and there’s no stopping it. This thing is more viral than Ebola.

At the time of this typing, the ad had 2,730,612 3,933,192 views on YouTube. THAT’s what we need in these trying times: Free advertising.

Longterm TTAC reader and indie musician Pennan Brae sent us a link to his latest video. It has a nice red Buick Skylark Convertible in it. At least one of the protagonists looks hot too. Because of the car, we would have run the video anyway. Then, Pennan decided to bribe us.

Look at this still from the video. And then …

There is the truth again!

With our interest sufficiently bribed piqued, we asked Pennan to tell us a bit about the car. Here it goes:

“I purchased this 1963 Buick Skylark Convertible in Portland, Oregon last April after first viewing it in March.  I’m a musician and I’d created a story for a music video for my song, ‘On The Highway’, which called for a classic car.  I looked at rental options, but they seemed pricey and I could redirect those funds towards a purchase and have something to be proud of and share with family afterwards. I always dreamed of owning a classic car and this pink beauty was truly love at first sight.  I dubbed her ‘Penelope’. 

My goal was to drive the 1000 miles to Los Angeles to meet the director, shoot the video and then return home.  Please let me reiterate that I’m a musician and not a mechanic.  In other words, I’m not the brightest guy in the world when it comes to car-related issues; i.e., things I should be aware of. 

I was excited to pick Penelope up and observe the improvements which were to be done by the dealer in prepping her for the journey.  While things externally were excellent, I realized there were items internally which were not completed as I hit the road.  For example, the speedometer and the interior dashboard lights were not working.  Hence I was going to have to ‘drive by feel’, and gauge my speed to other cars on the highway and shine a light on the dash as it got dark to check my fuel level.  I of course strove to eliminate this problem by avoiding night driving.

Thus I proudly and not too brightly pulled away, still infatuated with Penelope and excited by driving a lovely piece of Americana down the coast.  A couple hours south of Portland though I hit the mountains which take you from Oregon into California and it was snowing hard.  My bare knuckles gripped the wheel; I knew this was not the place or conditions for this car.  18-wheelers flew by and I imagined the site of this pink Buick plodding up the pass; in one way it was comical but in another, this was how folks got around 50 years ago.  If it was good enough then, why not now? 

After that mountain pass I cruised down the I-5 and Penelope loved it.  She seemed to sail through the vineyards and orchards of Central California effortlessly.  The sun shone, people smiled and honked at the car and I felt Penelope had found her natural habitat.  She seemed to just drive herself.

Then we hit LA traffic, but it wasn’t too bad.  I found the director’s home and he was pleased with the vehicle he was going to film.  We then prepared our work.  On Day 2 we would head into the California desert to shoot some highway scenes.

The trouble hit on that second day as, boom! a cylinder blew. An oil leak had sprung.  Smoke billowed out the air vents; we were scared and upset.  The fortunate part was we were near a turn-off to a community and so limped the car off to a gas station.  Just an hour prior, we wandered the desert by Edwards Air Force Base looking for an idyllic mountain backdrop to film; if Penelope had broke down there with no community about, we would’ve been in major trouble.

Some friendly locals in Rosamond gave us a hand and we left the vehicle with a mechanic who worked at Edwards A.F.B.  Prior to this setback, we did some excellent work shooting, but were obviously dejected by the reality of our situation and the fact we couldn’t finish our shoot.  We committed to doing so once Penelope was ready to roll again.

The car was transferred to Palmdale and repairs were made.  5 weeks later, I flew down to meet the director and finish this project.  We were lucky in that everyone involved in the shoot was still available and willing.  We were going to complete this.

So we did.  Penelope drove like a dream.  It was a costly error on my part, but I learned from it.  Our team worked hard to complete the shoot and I felt the director did a wonderful job capturing the spirit of the shoot and then telling the story in the final edits. 

At the end of the day, Penelope got home, better than before and hotter than ever.”

“In 1909, people shifted from the horse carriage to the automobile, and horses retired from the world of mobility. What happened to the horses? We still have horse races. People love horses. People support horses and horse racing. As long as car enthusiasts exist, motor sports will continue.”

Akio Toyoda, February 2, 2012, at the hachi-roku launch party

“Some Americans already put a 5 liter engine in a Mazda roadster. There are fanclubs who want to do the same with our car. There is no rule to limit that. As manufacturers, we can’t do that. We have to give guarantees. We need to build cars that last. Tuners can try. We welcome that.”

“As it is, only highly skilled drivers can make full use of the stock engine. Some people may like to have a higher speed in the straightaway, but there are lots of other cars they can choose.”

Nevertheless, Tada leaves the door open to more factory power, with interesting partners:

“For our current engine, we cooperated with Subaru. Maybe we cooperate with Porsche or someone else next time. You can partner with anybody in the world these days.”

BMW for instance?

Hachi-roku Chief Engineer Tetsuya Tada credits his sons with giving him the impetus to develop this car. His sons are 24 and 27 now, they do not have a driver’s license and show no interest in cars. “They sit in front of the computer all day,” says Tada. “On Gran Turismo, they are better than their father. But they don`t want to drive.”

Tada tells how he took his boys to the racetracks since age 5 to awaken an interest in cars. It was a disaster, Tada admits:

“Manufacturers like to blame young people for having no interest in cars. Maybe we should blame ourselves. Manufacturers provided boring cars and focused on older people, because this is where the money is. We have abandoned young people.”

Creating new excitement for young people in an affordable car became the driving force behind the hachi-roku. Then, Tada had another idea. “I want to provide an interface between our car and their computer.” When Tada mentioned this to his sons, their eyes lit up.

Toyota, says Tada, developed an interface that makes CAN bus data available to a computer or game machine. Toyota has ditched all driving nannies on the hachi-roku, and pared down the electronics to what is legally mandated. But the car must have a CAN bus, and Tada wants to give the data to the driver. Not like a glorified data logger. Says Tada:

“People could load driving data into Gran Turismo and recreate the drive. We can combine the data with Google streetview. People could drive in the real world against a virtual F1 driver. They can have fun with the data.”

Hachi-roku owners can do whatever they or developers come up with, because Tada wants to publish the specs.

A patent for that interface has been applied for, and as mentioned before, the gizmo “should be ready to buy by August 6^th.”

I requested an advance copy and will keep you posted. I better buy Gran Turismo.

The car is made at Subaru’s Gunma Manufacturing Division, 1,000 per month. Currently, there are more than 3,000 pre-orders, I better take a number. “But when will the car arrive in the U.S.?“ is what you and I want to know. “Not decided yet,” is the official answer.

Privately, I hear that the car should arrive in America, “sometime in summer.” It will be many hot months before Jack Baruth knows whether he is amongst the chosen 86.

Later, I question hachi-roku Chief Engineer Tetsuya Tada, about the U.S. launch date. No answer. Then, a possible hint.

It soon becomes evident that Toyota is really in love with everything 86. The car will be exported to 86 countries, Tada says. Later, we discuss an electronic gizmo Tada dreamt up (to be covered in the next installment,) and I ask Tada whether the gizmo will be available before the car arrives in the U.S.

“Oh, I expect it will be ready by August 6,” says Tada.

I ask him whether that day has a special importance.

“It is an eight and a six,” says Tada with a sibyllinic smile.

Hmmm.

Later in the evening, I receive a phone call from Toyota, saying that I shouldn’t take the 86 countries at face value, it might be a different number. What about August 6, I ask. “Let’s not even go there,” is the answer. Oh, the incertitude!

However, I was told that today, that now we have real specs and prices, and the cars (which looked deceptively like the production prototypes) are the ones that will be sold. In Japan. As for America –– we’ll get to that. Here are the vital stats of the hachi-roku JDM spec:

Trim levels: RC, G, GT, GT “Limited.”
Weight: From 1,180kg (2,601 lbs) for the RC version to 1,250kg (2,756 lbs)
Engine: DOHC horizontally opposed 4-cylinder direct injection
Output: 147kW (200hp) / 7,000 rpm
Torque: 205nm / 6,400 – 6,600 rpm
Wheelbase: 2,570mm

And to answer a burning and often asked question: Yes, a tape deck, even a CD radio with USB are available. As options.

Now, the prices. Prices range from 1,990,000 yen for the RC version to 3,050,000 yen for the “the works” GT Limited version. The RC version is a barest minimum stripped spec, meant for environmentally responsible racing: This way, you don’t have to toss stuff you don’t need on the track. But don`t fall in love with the specs unless you are in Japan.

“The U.S. model will be a Scion,” hachi-roku Chief Engineer Tetsuya Tada tells me later in a tete-a-tete. “Scion’s concept is one trim level. That should be comparable to our GT trim.”

In Japan, the GT trim costs 2,790,000 yen for the stick shift, and 2,870,000 yen for the automatic. That would be a whopping $36,677 if converted by Google. For the stick.

Toyota spokesfolk and later Tada warned repeatedly against coquettish currency conversions, as they made the rounds on fan sites. The Japanese prices includes taxes, and in any case, prices in other countries will be what the market requires, not what Google says. The U.S. price remains a secret. I would guess it’s below $30K, but no way is it below $20K. And no, no stripper version stateside. You heard the man.

Today, I will write about nothing else than Hachi-Roku, while the rest of the gang will serve you TTAC’s unusual fare of opinionated news, new opinion, old cars, fast women and rare guitars.

I shall be back after I have transcribed my tapes and developed my film. You will hear specs, prices, launch dates. You will learn why the grown-up son of the hachi-roku Chief Engineer has no driver’s license, and how this gave birth to a new idea. You will also hear why Akio Toyoda thinks that cars may become as relevant as horses, and why that’s o.k.

Stay tuned.

To celebrate the arrival of the, well, in a way, new Type 991 911, the Porsche Museum Stuttgart launches a great 911 retro- and introspective.  On display from today until 20 May will be an overdose of 911. 

The Porsche Museum is exhibiting all the 911 generations, from the “original 911” Ur-Elfer of 1963 to the new Type 991 of 2012, nicely set against a historically relevant backdrop. Think “Wirtschaftswunder” meets greed & Greece.

Likewise on display will be rare motor racing variants such as the Porsche 911 Carrera RS 2.7 “Safari” or the Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid. The show with the title “911 Identity” lets you admire secret design documents, still in their Leitz two ring binders. Speaking of secret, you can admire an original 991 Erlkönig in the flesh, and sit behind the wheel of a Porsche 911 Carrera. Porsche will hope that the contact is contagious.

Just don’t come on Monday: The Porsche Museum is open  Tuesday to Sunday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eight euro for adults, children pay half.