#Enthusiasm

Looking at this picture of Ferrari’s newest GT model, I can’t fight the smile that it brings to my face. Only yesterday, I asked TTAC’s Best And Brightest to square the eternal tension between the enthusiast’s love for unusual, communicative, original cars and the bland, practical vehicles that allow the industry to even consider the needs of those few of us who truly enjoy our cars. And while TTAC’s readers discussed the tortured relationships between enthusiasts and the industry they simultaneously love and hate, I spent some much-needed alone time in a car that could no more be described as boring than it could be described as a sales success (BMW sold nearly ten times the total production run of Z3 Coupes in each year of Z3 Roadster sales). And which has a remarkably similar profile to this new Ferrari FF.

Leave it to the Maranello madmen to popularize (and doubtless make tons of money off of) a look that previously separated the fans of unique quirk from even the sportscar mass market. No other automaker does as fine a job of turning the bizarre desires of the enthusiast community into a profitable business. Unlike BMW, Ferrari won’t need to sell ten twee soft-top versions of the FF to subsidize each sale of this handsome shooting brake… from its lofty peak atop the enthusiast-car competition, Ferrari can not only set the market’s tastes, it can make money doing it. But then, Ferrari has no more “freed millions from the tyranny of immobility” than I have… so perhaps this sudden embrace of a noble yet-neglected automotive form isn’t as significant as circumstances make it seem in my eyes.

[Hit the jump for actual information about the Ferrari FF]

Lord love the car blogs. On the same day TTAC was fooled by a local TV report’s use of a forum photoshop, the rest of the autoblogosphere has gone bananas for an “alleged spec sheet” that is in fact pure speculation on the part of a member of the GM forum cheersandgears.com. Although the “document” in question “surfaced” in a forum poll entitled “2014 Cadillac ATS – Powertrain Predictions” (and was never presented as an official or “leaked” document), the High Gear Media Hive Mind proceeded to write up the “alleged spec sheet” as if they’d just found it in the RenCen’s executive washroom. Though unable to “confirm its authenticity,” the HGM Collective was able to determine that

the new Cadillac ATS-V will feature a 6.2-liter V-8 developing 470 horsepower and 428 pound-feet of torque. That’s more than the Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG, the bad boy of the current crop of executive sports sedans.

From there, it was inevitable that the big boys of the car blogging world would jump aboard the bandwagon, albeit with the decency to call the source a “speculative document” or “the rumormill.” Still, this document didn’t “surface”… it was put together by a fan who then asked the members of his forum to vote on whether they “love” or “hate” his speculative lineup. Meanwhile, in the rush to parrot the “news,” some basic considerations have been left out…

TTAC doesn’t typically “do” motorsport, but we absolutely make exceptions for those racing-related stories that are of real significance to the larger industry or are simply too awesome to ignore (i.e. LeMons). The launch of the EV Cup may not seem particularly germane to the larger industry, as it will feature race-prepped Think EVs and open-wheeled Westfield iRacers (above), but it is significant in the sense that it is the first-ever all-electric racing series. But if you think about it, the lack of major OEM participation in this world-wide series is significant in and of itself. After all, wouldn’t Tesla be interested in promoting its Roadster as the epitome of EV excitement? Apparently not, as Autoblog Green reported way back in December of 2007 that Tesla admits its Roadster would make a poor track car because

The power electronics module (PEM) monitors a variety of the sensors in and around the battery pack and the air-cooled AC motor. If anything starts to get too hot, the PEM will automatically start limiting the power flow from the battery until things cool down. The result is that after a only a couple of laps of all-out track running, the motor will start to heat up and performance will be limited. On the road in real world conditions this won’t be a problem, because conditions generally won’t allow that sort of sustained extreme driving.

Oh well. After all, Tesla doesn’t want to be the “Silicon Valley Ferrari” anyway… that’s just too easy. But what about Audi, which is gunning for Tesla’s niche with two EV sportscars bracketing Tesla’s Roadster? Or Mercedes with its retina-searing SLS E-Cell? Or Ruf’s Greenster electrified Porsche? Seriously guys, it’s up to Think and Westfield to take the lead on this one?

Dave Garrad personifies the word “hoon”. When I first met him in the smoke and beer filled haze of the Gemutliche Ecke (Translation: Comfy Corner) in Adenau, Germany, he was attempting a maneuver called The Lunge. There’s never a dull moment around Dave. Naturally, I immediately considered him for the last English caretaker of TTAC’s Ford Sierra project, before its journey to Germany and (ultimately) Houston. Upon our (Panther-lovin’) man Dereck’s delivery of the Sierra to his abode northeast of London, Dave remarked at how glorious the brown upon brown scheme truly was. His wife Helen refuses to ride in the chocolate-toned thing, lest her unborn baby develop unnatural tendencies.

A little over an hour into our long-planned three-day West Virginia road trip, en route to rendezvous with my best friend and his father, my old man had entered a blind downhill hairpin too quickly, hit the brakes mid-turn, sideswiped a tree, and totaled his Mazda RX-8. In the past I’ve wondered what leads people to post about their unintended off-road misadventures on the Internet. Normally I wouldn’t, but this is a special case.

For five years I’d been waiting for this day to arrive. My best friend, both of our fathers, a pair of RX-8s, and the mountain roads of West Virginia. They’d been driving the cars on the flat, straight roads of Virginia Beach (where I grew up and the rest of them still live). I had been wanting them to experience how these cars were meant to be driven. Next spring my father’s RX-8 would become mine, so it was probably now or never. We opted for now.

In this third installment covering my long-sought West Virginia road trip ( part one, part two) we meet some of the local talent.

After six hours on the road I cross the Ohio River into West Virginia. New Martinsville is large enough to be ugly. And full of cars. Leaving town on WV 7/20, I’m stuck behind a half-dozen of them. Hopefully most will continue on 7 instead of 20—a glance at the nav shows the split ahead. After a few miles a passing zone finally opens up, and I take it, giving the Infiniti G37 coupe’s 330-horsepower V6 free reign, grabbing third at the redline…only to see the right turn for WV 20 flash by mid-pass. D’oh! Hit the brakes, turn around, this time successfully turn onto 20, and pass some of the same cars for a second time. A fair amount of embarrassment notwithstanding, with so much power on tap passing is effortless fun—as long as there’s a zone to do it in.

What’s better than a Bentley 8-litre? A Bentley 8-litre with a 42 liter Packard V12 from a World War II-era torpedo boat, of course. [via The Telegraph]

Lotus has perplexed and antagonized a number of auto enthusiasts by announcing its intent to expand beyond niche sportscars and become a global sport-luxe brand in the vein of Porsche and Ferrari. By announcing five future cars at once, Lotus made an audacious splash in the industry, and painted a giant target on its back. At the same time, Lotus’s initial plans called for the use of Toyota V8s and hybrid systems, leading some to wonder if Lotus was even being audacious enough. After all, assuming it could play with Porsche’s and Ferraris using only mass-market customer engines was somehow cravenly conservative to the point of being obnoxiously ballsy. Surely Lotus realizes that bespoke drivetrains are crucial to building a global sportscar brand? Well, apparently the Hethel boys didn’t get it… at least until their potential customers made an issue of it.

When “Maximum” Bob Lutz showed up on the advisory board at Lotus, we were hardly surprised about his choice of post-retirement projects. After all, Lotus is one of the most audacious (privately-funded) turnaround attempts in an industry that runs on turnarounds, and Lutz is the king of building automotive hype, fresh off of one of the most overexposed automotive projects in recent memory, the Chevy Volt. Besides, Lotus’s shot at an overnight leap from niche enthusiast brand to Ferrari and Porsche-rivaling juggernaut is so brazenly implausible, that Lutz actually lends credibility to the project. At least, he would do if he didn’t have that irrepressible knack for saying things like

People keep asking me if I’m sure the new plan will work, and of course I can’t guarantee that. It’s a risk. But I’m quite certain it stands a better chance than the Lotus status quo, which for sure would eventually lead this great brand into terminal decline

Lutz goes on to tell Autocar that Lotus’s billion dollar turnaround “a big gamble,” and admits that “a fair bit of showbiz” is driving Lotus’s quantum leap towards becoming a full-line sportscar and supercar maker. Does it sound like Lutz might have some mixed feelings about Lotus’s rush to trample its enthusiast credentials? More maximum mixed feelings below the fold.