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2018 Ducati SuperSport S Review: A Sport Bike for the Average Rider

The Ducati SuperSport came back in 2017 from a 10-year hiatus to bridge the gap between the upper echelon of the Ducati lineup and more approachable bikes. The SuperSport brings the elegant, looks-fast-standing-still design and technology from the Panigale to riders who aren’t used to reigning in 200 horsepower on a daily basis.

High strung sportbikes are one-trick ponies, as eye-catching and blisteringly advanced as they are. Bikes that are born from racing but adapted to the streets while still retaining impressive stats are compromised for everyday riding. Ergonomics, torque curves and power bands well-suited to produce lightning fast lap times are a bike’s most significant weaknesses on a daily commute while dodging traffic going from stop light to stop light. The Ducati SuperSport S cherry picks the best aspects from longer distance bikes and the sport bike world to give the average rider a taste of top-tier Ducatis on a daily basis.

The Good: Styling on the SuperSport is one of its main draws. What used to be out of reach for most riders — those who didn’t want a high-performance track machine but adored the styling — can now enjoy one of Ducati’s best designs in years.

A host of electronic aids and layers of menus let riders customize the character of their bike. You and a friend could both get a SuperSport, but through the eight-level traction control and three level ABS system, you can mix and match the computer’s level of intervention so much that you could share the same bike but have two completely different experiences.

Who It’s For: Commuters who are looking for a premium bike to use almost every day but don’t want the aggressive and cramped ergonomics of a track bike.

Watch Out For: The SuperSport only comes in two colors, but there’s a catch. The base model just comes in red, so if your heart is set on the white, you ‘ll have to spring for the S model and throw down an extra $1,700. And if you can live with red, a non-adjustable suspension and adding an optional quick-shifter, I’d stick with the base model, because those are the only differences.

One of the most egregious flaws of the SuperSport is undoubtedly its mirrors. I’m somewhat broad-shouldered, so with the SuperSport’s mirrors on such short stalks I had to keep pinching my shoulders and elbows in to get a view of what was behind me. That annoyance, however, had nothing on vibrations that rendered the mirrors all but useless at night. A bike with that big of an engine, with so few cylinders will, of course, not ride very smoothly — there are bound to be vibrations and a lot of them. The mirrors vibrated so much that during the day my rear view was closer to a French impressionist’s interpretation of reality and at night, I gave up entirely and just used quick glances over my shoulder.

Alternatives: The only real direct competitors are the Kawasaki Ninja 1000 and Suzuki GSX-S1000F. Both the Japanese bikes are more powerful than the Italian at 140 hp and 148 hp respectively and also both get power from inline-four engines, affording a smoother ride.

All three have similar price tags and multi-level traction control systems, but the Ducati is the only bike of the three to offer fully-adjustable suspension, three ride modes (Sport, Touring and Urban) on top of the eight-level traction control system and three level ABS.

Review: I never got the chance to take the SuperSport on to a track to explore or even get close to the limits of what can do, but then again, the majority of riders picking this bike up won’t either. In my week with the SuperSport I commuted back and forth from Manhattan to Jersey City through the Holland Tunnel during a heatwave, did a few highway blasts on the way to see friends and took a trip down to the beach for the weekend. In other words, I lived my life as I usually would, I just happened to have a Ducati underneath me. And, for an everyday rider, the SuperSport followed through on Ducati’s promise of versatility and performance.

I already had it in my head that Ducati’s idea of a ‘comfortable’ sport bike was simply bolting the footpegs lower on the bike and calling it a day. And with styling so close to that of the Panigale superbike, it was all too easy to write the SuperSport off almost immediately. Getting proved wrong the second I sat on the bike was the most jarring moment of the entire week.

Yes, the pegs are lower, opening up more leg room, especially for taller riders, but so is the seat. Combine that with the raised position of the handlebars and I was sitting nearly bolt upright. On longer rides or even short bursts through the city where body position is continuously changing, that freedom of movement affords the rider back an incredible amount of endurance.

In slipping in and out of traffic to and from work, useable torque is the SuperSport’s calling card. If the SuperSport boasted superbike performance to match its looks, all the power you need would be comically high in the rev range. Instead, Ducati moved most of the torque to just above 3,000 RPM, so you can ride around at a pace which won’t earn you any tickets or summons, but you can still get your money’s worth from the power you paid for. You can thank the punchy 937cc L-Twin for that because the more rev-happy inline-four competition from Japan make you go searching for power above the 9,000 RPM mark, which can be useful on the highway but you’ll rarely see that on city streets.

The engine gives the Ducati trademark vibrations throughout the bike — it renders the mirrors absolutely useless and becomes temperamental at low speeds, on light throttle. Trundling through the Holland Tunnel, where there’s no passing and traffic moves at crawling pace on a regular basis coasting was difficult. At low RPM, power delivery was choppy, causing the bike to jerk slightly. I wasn’t anywhere near the point of stalling the bike; the engine just didn’t like the lazy pace — noting the bike’s air-temperature thermometer read 122 degrees Fahrenheit in the middle of the tunnel, neither did I.

Verdict: If you look at the price tags and performance numbers alone, the Ducati doesn’t sit at the top of its class. The Kawasaki and Suzuki easily beat it out there, offering more power for the same if not less money. But – and this is very big, obvious ‘but’ – numbers aren’t everything.

The full experience on the Ducati SuperSport is more than just numbers. Superior design, sound and the way it effortlessly takes on corners are the reason anyone leans towards a Ducati. Throw in the everyday usability of the SuperSport and you know have a beautiful bike, packed with performance and technology, without the torturous ergonomics of a superbike set up as a track weapon. The engine does have its flaws but as a whole package, Ducati scored a major win by opening up more riders to the more exclusive and intimidating part of the dealership.

What Others Are Saying:

• “Ducati may have designed this ride to bridge the gap between the laid-back riders and the more spirited ones, but the look is all sport and distinctly Ducati.” — Top Speed

• “Agile on city streets, comfortable on the motorway and superlative on out-of-town twisties, the SuperSport is super-versatile. Relaxed rider and passenger positions, good airflow deflection from the height-adjustable Plexiglas screen and the mileage provided by the 16-liter fuel tank also make the Ducati SuperSport a cool companion on medium-distance rides.” — Total Motorcycle

• “The SuperSport S is marketed as perfect for road riding without compromising its sporting spirit, to paraphrase Ducati. The subsequent lack of any soreness after riding definitely backs up that statement. The seating position makes for a pleasant commuter ride, while the handlebar set-up allows you to sit high, and the soft, wide – but not quite Honda Gold Wing wide – leather seat is perfect for stylish road riding.” — The National

Ducati Super Sport S Key Specs

Engine: 937cc L-Twin
Transmission: Six-speed
Horsepower: 110 hp @ 9,000 RPM
Torque: 69 lb-ft @ 6,5000 RPM
Weight: 463 lbs

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July 18, 2018 / Comments Off

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Review: Should You Buy a BlackBerry in 2018?

Nostalgia strikes with the BlackBerry Key2 smartphone ($649+). It’s the next-generation of 2017’s BlackBerry KeyOne and despite looking similar, the two models are different in all the right ways. The new model is slimmer, lighter and sturdier than its predecessor. The bezels on the Key2 are less prominent and its keyboard has been redesigned with 20-percent larger keys and a new “speed key” that lets users program their own shortcut to a specific app without going to the home screen. The Key2 has all its traditional specs bumped (processor, display, etc.) that you’d expect from a next-generation smartphone, too. And it’s the first Blackberry to ever have a dual rear-camera system. So in a world where BBMs are dead and iMessage is king, do you still need a smartphone with a smaller display and a physical keyboard?

The Good: Picking up the Key2 feels similar to using a mechanical keyboard with a computer — it’s different and sometimes difficult, but typing (texts, emails and Slack messages) is that much more enjoyable. The keyboard itself also comes with some neat tricks, such as 52 programmable shortcuts (one for each key), swipe gestures (which seems strange, but, for instance, you can scroll and erase messages by just swiping across the keyboard) and a fingerprint reader that’s in the spacebar. There’s an easy-access “Productivity Tab” that streamlines things like emails and calendar events. Blackberry put a number of features and apps, such as its well-known DTEK app, into the Key2 that take security to the next level. The rear-camera system is pretty decent for most photos. There’s a headphone jack.

Who They’re For: Any business person looking for a smartphone that’s primed for productivity (aka, somebody who sends a helluva lot emails via from their smartphone). It’s also not optimal for streaming videos or spending a lot of time looking at apps such as Instagram or Facebook, so the person probably shouldn’t care too much about that.

Watch Out For: Unlike many of the current crop of flagship and mid-range smartphones, the Key2 isn’t waterproof and doesn’t support wireless charging. Its display is tiny compared to pretty much every other smartphone in its price range. The keyboard can be frustrating at times, especially when you want to add symbols or numbers. The camera system isn’t great in low light.

Alternatives: In terms of other smartphones with physical keyboards, your only other option is last year’s Blackberry KeyOne, which is nowhere near as spec’d out as this much-updated Key2. At the $649, the Key2 is in line with other mid-range or older smartphones, such as the OnePlus 6, Google Pixel 2 or Samsung Galaxy S9, all of which have bigger displays and better camera systems.

Review: Full disclosure: I never had a Blackberry growing up. I never had the joy of BBMing or asking somebody, “Hey, what’s your pin?”. So getting my hands on the Blackberry Key2 was a novel experience — I hadn’t ever used a smartphone with a full keyboard before.

So let’s talk about the keyboard. Obviously, I use a keyboard on my desktop and laptop every day, so the physically typing on the condensed keyboard didn’t feel as abstract as I initially thought. The keys are small, true, but that was never really frustrated me. Instead, it was typing symbols and numbers that gave me the most problems, as navigating the Alt and Shift keys with just my thumbs felt aberrant.

The “speed key,” — that universal shortcut key — is located in the bottom-right corner of the keyboard and is surprisingly useful. It allows you to program up to 52 quick shortcuts to open apps without ever having to click the home button. I used it with just a few of my most-used apps — Twitter, Slack, Spotify, Gmail, Instagram — and I used it quite frequently. The keyboard has some swipe gestures, too, which first felt odd. You can switch between home screens, scroll up/down articles you’re reading and even delete words by just quickly moving your thumb over the keys. It’s honestly like the keys feel what I was trying to do — like a phantom touchscreen was there — but after a day or two of use, these swiping gestures kind of become second nature.

The keyboard is well-designed and feels great, but the great irony is that it actually made me a slower typer. I obviously have to caveat that point by saying two weeks of using a completely different smartphone isn’t enough time to break my habits, but still, I’m guessing most people used to typing on a touchscreen keyboard will have a similar problem.

The main star of the Blackberry Key2 is its keyboard, true, but the smartphone is also about privacy and security. As mentioned before, it has features and apps that bring this to the forefront. The DTEK app will tell you how secure each app is and let you manage permissions (it’ll tell you which apps have access to your microphone or certain log-in information, for example). The Redactor app allows you to black out sensitive information, too, so people standing near you can’t read what’s on your screen.

The other big difference is, as a result of that physical keyboard, that the Key2 has a smaller screen than other smartphones. The Key2 has a 4.5-inch display, which is slightly smaller than the 4.7-inch screen of the iPhone 8 and the five-inch screen of the Google Pixel 2, but it’s noticeably bigger — those smartphones are nearly all-screen.

For the most part, I didn’t have an issue with the smaller screen size. Apps like Gmail, Slack, Twitter, Google Maps and Messages all felt the same. However, the small screen has some noticeable drawbacks. The borders of Instagram Stories were cut off and watching landscapes videos on Netflix and YouTube is awkward. The resolution isn’t great either.

That said, the Key2 is a smartphone that’s not really meant for those things. Nor is it meant for taking photos, despite the fact that it’s the first Blackberry with a dual camera system and actually takes pretty decent photos. (I took a number of photos at my friend’s wedding and liked them enough to post on Instagram, which is saying something.) The camera, admittedly, isn’t great in low-light situations — photos can look flat — and it generally won’t impress you in the same way as the most recent iPhone, Samsung Galaxy or Google Pixel smartphones.

Verdict: At its core, the Blackberry is a very good mid-range smartphone. It’s fast, dependable and has a more than an adequate camera. Most importantly, it’s fun to use — a flash from the past. However, it’s really designed as a productivity weapon for business folks and doesn’t offer the supreme specs that are found in all today’s best flagship smartphones. The display isn’t big or beautiful, and it lacks features that have become ubiquitous, such as wireless charging and water resistance. If you want a second phone for business, or you’re just a big fan of Blackberry, the Key2 is a great choice. Otherwise, for $650, you can buy another midrange Android or an older iPhone and probably be happier.

What Others Are Saying:

• “BlackBerry Mobile managed to fix most of the issues, so if you were holding off on a KeyOne, you’ll probably love this phone. For everyone else it’s about figuring out whether you can get to the point where tapping away at a physical keyboard, like pen on paper, brings you enough fulfillment that you forget about all the things you’re losing in the process.” — Daniel Bader, Android Central

• “It might sound like I’m damning the phone with faint praise, but whatever: The BlackBerry Key2 is the best Android-powered BlackBerry ever made, and it improves on last year’s formula in almost every way. That said, the Key2 remains a questionable option for most smartphone shoppers — you could get a more-powerful Android phone like the OnePlus 6 for less money, and I suspect most people have moved on from physical keyboards without looking back. That said, for the right people — people who long for tactile keys and data privacy — the KEY2 just might be the right device at the right time.” — Chris Velazco, Engadget

• “On paper, it might be the best camera system ever put in a BlackBerry. But the Key2 doesn’t hold a candle to smartphone camera staples like the Pixel 2 XL and the iPhone X. After all, business users also want to take great photos with their phones, but the Key2 clearly isn’t cut out for that.” — Stefan Etienne, The Verge

Key Specs

Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 660
OS: Android 8.1 Oreo
Display: 4.5-inch IPS LCD (1,620×1,080)
Rear Camera: dual 12-megapixel camera system; 4K video at 30fps, 1080p video at 60fps
Front Camera: 8-megapixel
Key Features: headphone jack, USB-C charging,
Battery: 3500mAh

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July 13, 2018 / Comments Off

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KEF LS50 Wireless Review: The Perfect Hi-Fi All-in-One Speaker System

The KEF LS50 ($1,300/pair) has been regarded as some of the best desktop monitors (or hi-fi speakers, for their size) that you could buy since their release in 2012, but the British audio manufacturer has since released the KEF LS50 Wireless ($2,200/pair). Despite the likeness in name, the LS50 Wireless speakers are more than just Bluetooth- and wifi-enabled versions of the LS50. They are active powered speakers, unlike the passive KEF LS50, meaning each speaker has its own power amplifier built-in. But each LS50 Wireless speakers has two amplifiers, one for its tweeter and one for its woofer, and a dedicated DAC (up to 24-bit/192kHz) and DSP for each.

The Good: The KEF LS50 Wireless speakers offer the best of both worlds: a bonafide audiophile-grade stereo speaker system that can play up to 24-bit/192kHz audio files and can also be used as a traditional Bluetooth (aptX) speaker. Each speaker is built around KEF’s signature Uni-Q driver (comprised of a tweeter and woofer) and a hefty cabinet, which, in tandem, and with 230-watts per channel, are able to produce powerful, detail-rich audio that has virtually zero distortion — these speakers sound tremendous. The app is primed for Tidal and Spotify subscribers, and you can stream to the speakers directly through their respective apps. And there are numerous other wired connection options, including optical, USB-A and analog RCA inputs.

Who They’re For: If you want an all-in-one hi-fi system that sounds truly incredible, and doesn’t make you deal with separate stereo components, the KEF LS50 Wireless speakers are a great value for right around $2,200. The speakers also give you the option to connect a separate subwoofer, in case its natural bass isn’t enough (it probably is).

Watch Out For: The KEF LS50 Wireless speakers are a one-stop-shop hi-fi system, so if you have a separate stereo receiver, these aren’t the type of speakers for your setup. They’re not designed to be integrated into a home theater system, either. Both of the speakers are powered, so you’ll want to make sure they there’s open outlet space wherever you place them.

Alternatives: The KEF LS50 Wireless are a step above any other powered bookshelf speakers. Period. And there’s nothing really out there, in this price point, that’s like-for-like.

Review: Prior to testing the KEF LS50 Wireless, I was testing Audioengine’s new A5+ Wireless speakers, which are terrific-sounding, powered bookshelf speakers in their own right — especially for $500 — but it shouldn’t come as much of surprise that the KEF LS50 Wireless speakers are an entirely different animal. The level of detail you get from tracks just from Bluetooth streaming is, again, incredible. And then when you use the app and connect them to wi-fi, these speakers reach their true potential (if you’re streaming Tidal).

We spent most of the time streaming over wi-fi, from Spotify and Tidal, and the separation between the treble and mid-range is exceptional. In songs like “Downtown” by Majical Cloudz and “Gravity” by John Mayer, you can hear the vocals and individual instruments, especially percussion and strings, and it sounds like each is coming from their own separate place — it creates a soundstage that’s special, especially among stereo speakers.

The magic of the KEF LS50 Wireless, other than those unique drivers, is that there are two custom amplifiers and two built-in DACs in each speaker. This, along with an intuitive app that lets you adjust the DSP and other settings, means that the KEF LS50 Wireless is capable of producing an accurate audio experience that’s all their own. If the speakers are up against a wall or in a large room, or if you want more bass or treble, you can adjust the audio easily all in the app.

There are several features, not specifically related to audio quality, that are charming. Similar to the original KEF LS50, these new wireless speakers sort of look like the Death Star. And on the right speaker is an OLED touchscreen — plus a fantastic “click” noise when you turn the speaker on — and allows you to toggle through things like Bluetooth and wi-fi, along with allowing you to adjust the volume levels without breaking out your smartphone.

Verdict: $2,000 might seem like a lot to spend on a pair of bookshelf speakers — and it is — but the KEF LS50 Wireless offers so much more than your average high-end bookshelf speakers. They’re an engineering feat all in themselves, fitting individual amps, DACs and other electronics inside a cabinet that’s essentially the same size as the older LS50 speakers. They can be used as desktop monitors or an all-in-one hi-fi speaker system. And, best of all, anybody can use them: the app and a wi-fi connection allow Tidal tracks to play in all their high-resolution glory, or with the tap of the Bluetooth button anyone can play whatever they like — no instructions needed.

What Others Are Saying:

• “While I’ve been visited by no little birds, I will venture to say that this approach — fully active, with digital controls, integrated streaming, and the like — can and probably will be found in future KEF products. It really is just too simple to pass up. Simple — not in construction or execution — but in life. The lack of wires and extra bits means that the LS50W can go just about anywhere. Like the living room. An office. A bedroom. A dorm room! Though, maybe not the latter without some optional anti-theft deterrents, because these will draw not just eyes but outright lust..” — Scot Hull, Part-Time Audiophile

• “Put simply, for the £2000 you’ll pay for this ‘all-in-one’ setup, you’ll only get better by spending the same on hi-fi separates. The electronics and circuitry [are] so tailored to work perfectly with one another that the sound is spot-on – even pairing the LS50 passive speakers with a talented amplifier up to the same price can’t top it.” — Verity Burns, Trusted Reviews

• “We liked the speakers best, though, when rendering acoustic instruments — especially percussion. You know when the pop of a conga pulls you back into the room for its sheer presence, something is going right. One of our favorite moments came in the LS50 Wireless’ rendition of Ripple by the Grateful Dead. We’ve heard this song dozens of times over the years, but the speakers bring something really special to the table. The acoustic guitar at the intro sounds almost visible in space on the left side, while the rest of the instruments curl around in their own distinct locations within the stereo image. At the chorus, the dual mandolins are near magical in their precision — you can actually hear the room echo flutter between each click of the frenzied strumming.” — Ryan Waniata, Digital Trends

Key Specs

Speakers: Fully active speakers with built-in streaming preamp
Drivers: Uni-Q driver combo: 5.25-inch woofer, 1-inch aluminum tweeter
Frequency Range: 40Hz – 47kHz
Frequency Response: 45Hz – 28kHz
Max Volume: 106dB
Streaming: Tidal, Spotify, Bluetooth aptX support
Connectivity: wi-fi, Bluetooth 4.0 aptX, RCA, subwoofer
Weight: 22.5 pounds (each)

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July 2, 2018 / Comments Off

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Sonos Beam Review: The Perfect Entry-Level Soundbar, for Most People

The Sonos Beam ($399) is the company’s newest soundbar that, similar to the Playbase ($699) and the Playbar ($699) that came before it, integrates your TV with your existing Sonos speakers. If you have a multi-room setup you can play the TV’s audio throughout your whole house, or you can configure your other Sonos speakers as satellites and/or rear channels and thus have a complete Sonos surround sound system.

That said, the Sonos Beam is much more than a smaller, more affordable version of those other soundbars. It’s a smart speaker with Alexa built-in, like the Sonos One, so you can ask Alexa to play music or control your smart home devices. And since it’s connected to your TV, you can use your voice to control your TV, too, which is a first for Sonos. For TV control, the Sonos Beam will work best for those with an Amazon Fire TV (or a TV with an Amazon Fire TV dongle), allowing you to ask Alexa to turn on the TV and even go to specific shows or channels. Also, unlike Sonos’s larger soundbars, the Sonos Beam can be either wall mounted or left to rest on your media console. (The Playbase needs to rest under your TV while the Playbar is designed to be wall mounted.)

The Good: The great thing about any Sonos speaker, other than its sound quality, is that it comes with great software and an intuitive companion app — and the Sonos Beam is no different. You just plug the soundbar in, and then the app walks you through how to correctly connect it to your TV. The app also tunes the soundbar so that it’s optimized for your room, using its Trueplay tuning software, same as other Sonos speakers. If you own an Amazon Fire TV (or dongle), the Sonos Beam will be able to control your television almost completely. It plugs into to your TV through HDMI ARC port and it supports CEC, so you can use your TV’s remote to adjust the volume if you don’t feel like asking Alexa.

One of the most intriguing aspects of the Sonos Beam is that Sonos promises that it will eventually support all major virtual assistants, including Alexa (built-in), Siri (mid-July) and Google Assistant (by end of 2018). Not only that, but the Sonos Beam promises “cross-platform voice control,” meaning, as it pertains to music streaming, you’ll be able to ask Siri to play a song, then ask Alexa what song was playing. (This is an example that Antoine Leblond, Sonos’s VP of software, showed off at the Sonos Beam’s launch event in early June). You’ll be able to do other things like this eventually, but the conditions need to be perfect for it to work — certain virtual assistants won’t work with certain streaming services, for example. These cross-platform voice controls aren’t available at launch, so I wasn’t able to test them, but knowing they’re coming is a good thing. (It makes the product “future proof.”)

Who They’re For: At launch, there are two ways of looking at the Sonos Beam. Either 1. you’re buying it because you have other Sonos speakers and you want to integrate your TV into the mix, or 2. you want one smart speaker to rule your home — it can greatly improve the sound of your TV while also being a darn good speaker for streaming music. In the latter instance, the Sonos Beam is effectively taking the place of any quality sounding smart speaker, like the Google Home Max or Apple’s HomePod.

Watch Out For: The Sonos Beam is a plug-and-play, entry-level speaker that’s designed to work well with other Sonos speakers, but if you have a home entertainment system that includes an A/V receiver and non-Sonos satellite speakers, this is probably not the soundbar for you. (You could integrate them all with a Sonos Connect:AMP, but that gets messy and expensive.) If you don’t have an Amazon Fire TV, you won’t be able to control your TV with Alexa as completely as you might expect. And if you use your TV’s optical port instead its HDMI-ARC port, you won’t be able to turn the TV completely on/off with Alexa. Even though the Sonos Beam sounds very good with its wide stereo separation, it won’t sound as immersive as other soundbars with Dolby Atmos or DTS Virtual:X that creates three-dimensional sound using virtual height channels.

Alternatives: The Playbar ($699) and Playbase ($699) are the two other soundbars that Sonos makes. Both are louder than Sound Beam and probably better options for larger rooms. The main difference, other than size and cost, is that neither of those soundbars is a smart speaker that’s integrated with a virtual assistant: you can’t summon music or you control your TV (in any capacity) with your voice.

If you’re just looking for a soundbar that doesn’t need to sync with other Sonos speakers around the house, there are a number of great-sounding and more affordable options to choose from; the Yamaha YAS-207 ($300), for example, is affordable and supports the latest surround sound technologies by DTS and Dolby Audio.

Review: For the last week I’ve had the Sonos Beam hooked up to my Vizio M-Series (2017 model) and I can tell you, right off the bat, that the Sonos Beam won’t be for everybody. If you have an A/V receiver and two satellite speakers that are normally connected to your television, like me, you’re not going to be able to easily integrate the Sonos Beam into your home theater without a Connect:AMP, which is expensive. I didn’t have one, so I reviewed the Sonos Beam as a standalone soundbar. That said, you’re not going to buy the Sonos Beam to integrate it into your non-Sonos home theater system. It’s a soundbar that’s meant to work by itself or with other Sonos speakers. And that’s what it’s great at.

The Sonos Beam is a 3.0-channel soundbar that can be integrated into 5.1 surround sound system if you add two Sonos One (or two Play:1) speakers and a Sonos Sub. However, I’m guessing that most people looking at the Sonos Beam aren’t going to have those other Sonos speakers — yet — and are instead just looking at it as a great-sounding, versatile and entry-level soundbar. It sounds very good, with a wide stereo separation that isn’t as immersive as other immersive technologies (like Dolby Atmos or DTS Virtual:X), but still makes you feel like in the movie or show (especially if you’re watching in a small-to-medium-sized room). Using the soundbar is exactly like talking to an Amazon Echo or a Sonos One speaker. You can select from the same default music streaming services (Amazon Music, Spotify, Pandora), but the Sonos Beam just sounds bigger and better than those other smart speakers.

The other difference is that the Sonos Beam is obviously a big upgrade over your television’s speakers. When you turn on the television, the sound comes out of the soundbar and movie nights or just watching ESPN become instantly better. Worried about a tedious setup process? Don’t be. The Sonos app walks you through the whole thing, from using an optical dongle if your older TV doesn’t have an HDMI output for audio, to turn off your TV’s default speakers — it’s all really easy.

Again, the Sonos Beam excels as a soundbar and as a smart speaker. The last thing that Sonos Beam can do is control your television, and this is where it gets a little iffy. If you have an Amazon Fire TV (or dongle), it works wonderfully. In a private demo, I witnessed the Sonos Beam turn the television on and off, open up to specific shows, and pause and rewind those shows. Boom. Amazing.

I don’t have an Amazon Fire TV, though. I have an Apple TV 4K and an Xbox One, both of which are connected to the TV in my room, and I wasn’t able to utilize many Alexa commands. I was able to adjust its volume and I was also able to switch to specific channels and programs (like ESPN’s “Get Up” show in the morning) on the TV that’s in our living room, which is where our Verizon Fios cable box is connected. So if you don’t have an Amazon Fire TV, but your Sonos Beam is connected to a TV with a cable box (Sonos supports all the major providers), you’ll be able to ask Alexa to go to specific channels. But you still won’t be able to open apps on the Apple TV, like HBO Now or Netflix, until support for Airplay 2 launches in the coming weeks.

(Note: When support for Airplay 2 launches this July, anybody with an Apple TV will be able to ask Siri to play specific apps and shows. You’ll have to speak to Siri directly through your iOS device or Apple TV remote, however, and not directly through Sonos Beam like you can now with Alexa.)

Verdict: The Sonos Beam promises a lot, especially when it comes to cross-compatibility. If it’s actually able to understand and work with Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant, all at the same time, then that’s great. Better than great, actually. But I wasn’t able to test that and in my experience, when virtual assistants from one company start controlling devices from a different company, things get complicated and they never work as well as you think they should. (Siri still won’t be able to identify a song playing on Spotify, for example.)

Sonos is known for not being complicated, however. You just plug in its speakers, follow the in-app instructions and they just work. So instead of looking the Sonos Beam as this ambitious speaker for the home, even though it could turn out to be just that, I think it’s better to look at what you’re guaranteed to get out of it. And that’s an audiophile-grade smart speaker, rivaling the Google Home Max or an Apple HomePod, and that’s a terrific entry-level soundbar. Throw in the fact that it’s going to be able to work with most future smart devices, and $399 is a pretty good deal. If you have an Amazon Fire TV, it’s a steal.

What Others Are Saying:

• “At a high level, all of this means that the Sonos Beam will offer an exchange between competing voice assistants in a way that no other smart speaker on the market does. But to Jones’ point, there are still limitations around how all of that will work, due to the way the individual cloud services work. While I was at the company’s offices, Sonos more than once used an example where you’re using Siri to initiate a song and then asking Alexa to identify which song it is. In reality, that will work only if you’re playing Apple Music. Switch to Spotify and Siri can’t be used for song search or initiation, only playback and volume controls.” — Lauren Goode, Wired

• “At $399, the Beam isn’t cheap, but it’s markedly less expensive than Sonos’ other TV speakers. It’s the same price as the Google Home Max and only $50 more than Apple’s HomePod. But because it also works as a soundbar, it offers more utility than either of them. And because Sonos is trying to mediate between all these different ecosystems, it works (often better) with more services than either of them.” — Dieter Bohn, The Verge

Key Specs

Drivers: four full-range woofers, one tweeter, three passive radiators
Channels: 3.0
Key features: five-microphone array,
Compatibility: Amazon Alexa, Siri/AirPlay 2 (July), Google Assistant (sometime in 2018)

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June 27, 2018 / Comments Off

738

This Travel Adapter Changed the Way I Use AirPods

When Twelve South announced its nifty little travel accessory, the AirFly ($40), last month, I honestly couldn’t wait to get my hands on one. Its promise was big. It allowed anybody to listen to in-flight movies with AirPods. Previously, you’d have to use a wired headphone — most likely the cheap ones that Delta provides — and plug it into the 3.5mm jack in the armrest or next to the monitor to hear those movies. Not with the AirFly. After an initial pairing process that takes less than 20 seconds, you can plug the AirFly into that said headphone jack and listen to those yet-to-be-released airplane flicks with your AirPods. Beautiful.

As somebody who loves their AirPods — I’m on my second pair after leaving my first set in a California hotel room, but I digress — the AirFly excited me, though not for the reasons you might think. I don’t fly often, so the prospect of using AirFly and my AirPods on an airplane didn’t totally do it for me. Instead, I wanted to see how AirFly changed the way I play video games.

You won’t catch me in big eSports tournaments or anything like that, but I do dabble in the dark arts of a Nintendo Switch and an Xbox One. For the past few weeks, I’ve been using the AirPlay and my AirPods to play both games — and there are pros and cons to both. The Nintendo Switch really lends itself to the AirPlay. The handheld console doesn’t have Bluetooth built-in — a surprising omission, actually — so you need wired headphones if you don’t want everyone around you to hear everything. And the AirFly works seamlessly with the Switch; after pairing with the AirPods, I just plugged the AirFly into the Switch’s headphone jack and was good to go. Boom.

But I expected the AirFly to work well with the Switch. Going into my testing I really wanted to know was whether the AirFly would work with Xbox One — if I plugged it into a controller, would I be able to use my AirPods while playing Xbox Live with friends? The answer is “yes,” but mostly “no.”

I tried the AirFly with two different Xbox One controllers — a new controller with a 3.5mm jack and an older one that required a headset adapter ($25). Both worked pretty much the same: the AirPods could play the game’s auto and I could hear my friends, but the built-in microphone didn’t work, so my friends couldn’t hear me. This wasn’t entirely unexpected, as AirPods have been known to have some issues when paired with some non-iPhone smartphones — but still, this was a bit of a bummer.

At the time of testing, I was also playing around with the Oculus Go, the company’s new portable VR headset. It has a 3.5mm jack for audio, so I was able to use the AirFly (and my AirPods) while watching the World Cup and playing ‘Settlers of Catan’ in virtual reality. I know that the AirFly was designed specifically to allow people to listen to their AirPods on flights, but I found some other uses. True, I wasn’t able to replace my current gaming headset with your AirPods — most serious gamers wouldn’t dream of doing this anyway — but you can’t blame me for trying. I just like AirPods too damn much.

Editor’s Note: It’s worth noting that the AirPlay isn’t a revolutionary product. There are other Bluetooth receivers on the market that can essentially do the same job. However, the AirFly is specifically marketed for AirPods and has an instruction guide that’s specifically geared to help AirPod owners pair their AirPods — what to press, and for how long, etc. It’s just easier, and I appreciate that.

June 20, 2018 / Comments Off

686

2015 Audi S3: A Future Used Car Bargain?

Three generations later, the Audi S3 is still going strong, capturing the hearts of young professionals everywhere. Evolving to be better, the S3 still has performance in mind while living to expectations that Audi is known for. The S3 is only offered in a sedan and while it looks very sleek, it does have issues. What better way to explore the best and the worst than a road trip!? Let us at Supercars.net take you on a cross-border journey with our companion from Ingolstadt.

A New Generation

The current generation was designed and developed with modularization in mind: meaning interchangeable pieces for efficiency and cost-savings in mind. Under the MQB platform, the Volkswagen Group is able to create the S3 in the same underpinning as the Volkswagen Golf GTI/R to compete with the Mercedes Benz CLA, and the BMW 2 series. The MQB, which stands for “Modular Transversal Toolkit” in English, gives the Group a singular platform to provide easy maintenance, engine/secondary parts interoperability while giving unique design cues on the exterior and interior. Modularization also gives the Group a competitive advantage, by creating individuality on aspects that matter. The reason why the engine is uniform is that the mounting point is the most exhausting part to develop in order to meet regulations. Beyond electrical and physical mounting points, anything is fair game.

Third Time is the Charm

The third generation of the S3, dubbed 8V, has a complex and interesting history,

Since North America is tasting the S3 for the first time, we’ll

focus as if the other two doesn’t exist. In this case, they got this package right. As a compact sedan, it’s reminiscent of the early Audi S4 sedans of the late 90s/early 2000s. The early B5/B6 iterations of the S4 were the right balance of power and handling, with a slight understeer. Compared to the new S4, the S3 is a pocket rocket with great design features that give it a special charm. It’s not as slick as the Mercedes Benz CLA, but once you get inside, you’ll know why that’s a disadvantage.

With a muscular stance, the side profile is very intimidating, with a great flare line at the back, and it’s a great silhouette overall. With the S series, the side mirrors are contrasted with silver and depending on the technology package, the 2015 S3 may have 18 or 19-inch alloy wheels. It’s a pretty car to look at in the sea of beige econoboxes.

On the Road Again…

For this exciting adventure, we brought the 2015 Audi S3 to a road trip from Canada to Portland, Oregon. In the land where keeping things weird is the norm, it’s the perfect location to test out the quirkiness of this delightful vehicle. A mixture of twisty roads, flat, buttery-smooth interstate highways, and early Americana-designed roads filled with random turns, tight spaces, and potholes, it’s a testament to what this machine can do.

This 2,400km round trip gave us a long time to get acquainted with the S3 and we feel that it was quite adequate on the highway. With a peppy 2.0 liter engine, the oomph was definitely there when you need it, and with the S-Tronic transmission, the quick shifts made it easy to pass slow moving traffic. The 2015 version has the 6-speed gearbox versus the newer 7-speed and you don’t really feel the need for another gear. The powerband does peak at around 5000-ish rpm and no point going to redline. It’s just buzzing noises after that. The DSG shifts add that exhaust ‘fart’ that is common with this transmission and you do feel the torque when you punch it.

Choose Your Path

The S3 has a ‘Drive Select’ mode, where you can switch between driving profiles with an option of creating your own. By selecting a mode using a button located in the central console, you can choose:

Comfort: Turning radius isn’t as tight, the suspension is cushy, and the launch starts at second gear with earlier shifts to minimize jolt and a smooth transition
Dynamic: Tighter turning radius, a more responsive (hint: stiffer) ride, and launches at first gear with the option to go to redline (although it will auto-shift for you if you don’t action it)
Auto: The car predicts which profile you need
Individual: You can manipulate steering/suspension/acceleration based on one of the three criteria above

The 2015 Audi S3 has Magnetic Ride or ‘MagneRide’ developed by Delphi and described as,

“[…] When the magnets are off, the fluid travels through the passages freely. However, when the magnets are turned on, the iron particles in the fluid create a fibrous structure through the passages in the same direction of the magnetic field. The strength of the bonds between the magnetized iron particles causes the effective viscosity of the fluid to increase resulting in a stiffer suspension. Altering the strength of the current results in an instantaneous change in force of the piston. If the sensors sense any body roll, they communicate the information to the ECU. The ECU will compensate for this by changing the strength of the current to the appropriate dampers.”

Neat stuff, eh? Well, the end result is either stiff or stiffer. You can tell the difference on the twisty mountain roads, but when you’re driving on flat Interstate roads, you can feel every bump. It’s like driving on a teenager’s acne-prone face. It’s not bone jarring but it’s not a sublime ride by any means.

The transmission responds well to the Drive Select and I kept mine on ‘Individual’ with:

Dampening: Comfort
Steering: Dynamic
Transmission: Dynamic
Engine Sound: Dynamic

A Tight Squeeze Interior

As the S3 ate up the miles, we got intimate with the car. Our convoy was a 4-person crew with an average height of 5’7″ Overall, the interior layout is nothing but phenomenal.

We love how it lacks a touchscreen but has a pop-up display in the middle of the dashboard. The instrument cluster was clean, unobtrusive, and ergonomically sound. The HVAC display works great. The sound/volume knob is an odd placement, as we kept turning off the blower instead of turning down the radio. When you park the car, it has a clean design and you have the option of stowing the screen away when you’re driving at night to minimize light distractions.

The sport bucket seats at the front are multi-adjustable and you’ll be able to find your comfort spot. The steering wheel is comfortable, with the ridges at 3 and 9 o’clock for a prime driving position. A lot of cars don’t have this feature and it makes a difference when you’re driving for a long time. This Audi S3 has the blind-spot monitoring package but not the active braking, lane departure warning, etc. which is nice. Yes, we understand the great advances in safety technology but it’s just nice to have minimal nannies and just have the essentials. The blind-spot monitoring is a nice touch because as small as this car this, the B and C-pillars are horrendous when you’re switching lanes. I wouldn’t depend on it but is it ever annoying to look at the pillars. They are huge.

The Audi navigation interface has vastly improved throughout generations, especially with the addition of touchpad with handwriting recognition within the control knob. It makes navigating for an address way easier. The voice recognition needs work, as the Mercedes voice navigation I found, was better at recognizing addresses, or contacts.

Not everything is rainbows and butterflies though: the sunroof shade is flimsy and rattles at times, so you have to slide it back into place. The rear seating with the sloping roofline is adequate but not if you’re 6 feet tall and over. On the plus side, the rear seating is worse on the CLA. This is how much room I have with someone sitting the same height as me (5’7″). I mean, one Kleenex box is enough knee room, plus there are built-in passages within the front seat to add more leg room. Overall, it’s not bad to sit in the back but I don’t know how my passengers dealt with that. Maybe it’s the Candy Crush.

A good interior modification that we did was adding Clear Mounts. A custom-fabricated solution, Clear Mounts is an ingenious solution that gives a smartphone a magnetic mount that fits on the Audi A3/TT air vents. You can check them out more here, and we’re just big believers of the product. It’s well-built, well-packaged, and adds more room for other items to take space.

However, the worst offender of all: the front cupholders. In our opinion, this was a complete afterthought. The cups are too close to each other and sometimes, not deep enough. We had trouble fitting two small-sized coffee cups from McDonald’s, and they basically had to overlap one other. Which means if I wanted to drink my coffee, I had to inform my passenger to lift his out first before I can retrieve mine out. Also, check out the configuration when we add water bottles into the equation. As you can see, the tall bottles get in the way of the HVAC controls, but I feel like we’re just nitpicking now.

It also gets in the way of the 12V plug, but at least there’s a tiny shelf in the back of the cupholders to fit random change or hand sanitizer.

Exploring Portlandia

Hours later, we did arrive in Portland. Navigating through the early streets of the Pacific Northwest requires a vehicle that’s agile, small, and easy to park since everyone in Portland loves parallel parking. In comparison to a fellow MQB vehicle, the S3 isn’t that imposing and is perfect to navigate around the city. It has more than enough power to do over-takes, while it’s short enough to park with ease. The rear-view camera and the surrounding sensors are a great touch to easily park the car in-between.

While exploring this great city, we found that it has great eateries and breweries throughout! It was a foodie’s place to explore and we are so fortunate we had a great car to navigate along with. As we drove through narrow streets, many roundabouts and random one-way, a longer car like an S4 or a Mercedes-Benz C-Class might be a little bit of a struggle but not by much. Having the length of the S3 made things way easier though. An oddity in Portland though is that it’s illegal to fill up your own gas tank! How bizarre is that? Our first instance of this event involved a Q&A session with the gas attendant, to which came up with no conclusion. No one could really tell me why this law exists, but it just does.

We first stopped by Oven and Shaker to grab some delicious pizzas late night and enjoy our first night in Portland. The 50 liter tank in the S3 made long-distance travel a cinch, but with the

premium octane requirement, the savings were diminished but not by much compared to a V8 engine. As we continued to explore downtown Portland, the sports suspension does show their true color, bouncing around bridges, ruts, and train tracks. It becomes annoying as the days go on, but that’s completely based on your tolerance level.

The next day we stopped by Pioneer Square and visited Nike’s flagship store. Inside was a multi-level nirvana for any sneakerhead and had the NikeID section where you can customize your own shoes. I mean, I couldn’t walk away without getting a pair of my favorite brand so it had to be done. I’ll leave you guessing as to what it is, but it wasn’t an Air Max 270 since they didn’t have my size.

Next, we stopped by a new Vietnamese fusion restaurant called Hem 23, which gave us a unique take on Vietnamese noodle soup called phở. A spicy beef noodle version with mixed greens was a delight there. Parking as always, is tough, but relatively easy for the S3. The spicy beef broth was as impeccable as the leather seats and the soft-touch dashboard but unfortunately, not as delicious as the soup itself. Then for dinner, we stopped by the legendary Pok Pok, which was just a single Portland restaurant way back when that turned into a food empire. Providing traditional Thai cuisine to Portland, it was an eclectic atmosphere that was out-of-character for the proper, refined Audi. However, we did enjoy some great eats that will definitely fuel up for the ride home.

You’re probably wondering why only these places?

Because we literally drove for the weekend to enjoy the sights and sounds. That might sound odd to some, but as a car fanatic, you’d understand. You’ve had random nights where you just drove, drove… And drove. There were days where you just took your favorite car out to go on a ride to the mountains, or just to be one with your prized possession. This is what we did and we had a goal of enjoying every minute of it!

All Good Things Must Come to an End

So while we ate, we did do some outlet mall shopping and this is where the S3’s other disadvantage comes into play: trunk space (or the lack of it). Because it’s a compact sedan, it doesn’t leave much room to the imagination on what it can fit in the back. We filled our suitcases to the brim with goodies, and with our soiled clothes from the vacation, trunk space was tricky. Here is what we had to fill in at 5AM on the way home:

Two computer bags
Four hardshell carry-on bags
Multiple plastic bags of soiled clothes
First Aid Kit
Emergency Tire Inflation Kit
A small messenger bag

Through some joint manipulation and many hours of Tetris training, we got everything to fit. The thing that makes the S3 gorgeous is also the most fatal flaw: the wide arches in the back, the small stature with a sharp tail sacrifices trunk space. Compared to an S4, what we carried could have been swallowed up easily. In the S3, we struggled and that is the sacrifice you have to make when you travel with the S3. The peppiness, the good looks, and the efficiency comes at a price.

The Definitive S3 Conclusion

The Audi S3 is a great addition to the Audi lineup. With three years in, you can slowly pick up one of these for a relative bargain and with the introduction of the faster, five-cylinder RS3, expect the S3 to slightly going down in value. It would be a great pick to anyone’s stable and as you read up top, it’s a great weekend cruiser but be prepared to have some sacrifices to enjoy what this car was meant for: a fast sedan for the young professional.

Plus:

Great on gas
Gorgeous looks
Usable power band
Compact and easy to park
Well equipped for the age
Pop-up screen is a joy

Minus:

Terrible design on value-added features (cup holders)
B/C-Pillars are huge and unsightly when shoulder checking
Trunk space leaves little to be desired for
Carriage-like ride
Below-average rear seat space

June 4, 2018 / Comments Off

664

Christopher Ward Malvern 595 Review: An Ultra-Thin Watch at an Ultra-Low Price

Christopher Ward is a name that, amongst watch enthusiasts, might garner either disregarding sneers by those apprehensive to boutique brands or respectful nods of approval from those who perceive it as an exceptionally good value. Taste in watches is, ultimately, a very subjective thing, but it’s hard to argue that the brand doesn’t offer a lot of watch for not a ton of money. In fact, the brand was something of a pioneer of the value-driven online watch movement back in 2004 when it became one of the first brands to sell its timepieces directly to consumers on an online platform.

In recent years, the brand’s prices have crept up, but the products have become more ambitious. For example, in 2014, Christopher Ward debuted an in-house developed movement with a five-day power reserve and chronometer certification, which you can pick up for under $2,000. The brand’s latest timepiece — the C5 Malvern 595 — is not as mechanically ambitious, but in many ways, it still is an impressive feat of watchmaking. Coming in at just 5.95mm (hence the name) and rocking a hand-winding movement, it is one of the thinnest (if not the thinnest) mechanical watches you can buy under $1,000. Given that watchmakers have something of a fixation on making super-thin watches at the moment, it makes it certainly worthy of consideration, no matter how you feel about the brand.

The Good: If you have been bitten by the ultra-thin bug but can’t swing the expense that usually comes with one, the Malvern 595 is a sound compromise. The case feels impossibly sleek and sits so flat it might as well disappear into your wrist. The watch also has a minimal and vaguely industrial design that works with the sleek case design; it feels crafted in the same vein as neo-Bauhaus watches from other microbrands like Union Wares which makes the ultra-thin appeal feel a lot less fuddy-duddy than the old-guard Swiss watchmakers make it seem.

Who It’s For: Anyone looking at accessibly-priced mechanical dress watches should consider looking in the 595’s direction, especially if thinness is a prioritized attribute. It’s an astoundingly sleek timepiece with proportions that are only matched by far more expensive watches.

Watch Out For: It can feel trite to complain about modern watches being too large, but this is really the Malvern 595’s biggest issue. At 39mm in diameter it doesn’t sound like it’s particularly big, but this is a dress watch with a very narrow bezel we’re talking about; this makes the dial feel gigantic. Which would be less of a problem if the dial weren’t so austere. Minimalist dials can be deceptively tricky to master, but by keeping them physically small, you avoid leaving in too much negative space. A drop in diameter would certainly make it feel less sterile.

Alternatives: You’d be hard-pressed to find a watch as thin as the Malvern 595 in its price range, but a couple watches come close. The Junghans Meister Handaufzug — which uses the same ETA 7001 base movement — is 7.3mm thick, but at $1,290 it costs nearly twice as much as the Christopher Ward. If you favor an automatic, Hamilton’s newly revised Jazzmaster Thinline comes in at 8.45mm thick, fairly scant for an auto using a stock ETA movement, and at $995 is closer to the Malvern in price.

Review: If you’ve been paying attention to what brands have been releasing at Baselworld and SIHH, you’d know that for the past couple years many high-end brands have been fixated on slinming watches, trying to one-up their competitors by fractions of a millimeter. Look at Bulgari’s Octo Finnisimo Tourbillon Automatic, a 3.95mm automatic tourbillon, or Piaget’s 2mm-thick watch concept. But these are far out of the grasp of the everyday watch buyer.

But Christopher Ward’s Malvern 595 exists well outside this mainstream realm of high-end one-upmanship, quietly debuting online in February of this year. Even casting the matter of price aside, its 5.95mm profile is still astoundingly thin, but significantly more wearable than Piaget’s razor-thin concept or Bulgari’s six-figure tourbillon. Its more straightforward design also has more mass appeal and wearability than a super-thin watch showcasing a dial crammed with gears.

The 595’s modern, minimalist aesthetic suits the svelte case incredibly well. The bezel is slim and simple, with a small bevel on the outer-edge the only flourish. The dial is also free of any unnecessary complications
— there’s no date, no minute markers, no lume. The dial finish itself is interesting: it’s sandblasted, and its look varies depending on the light. Indoors, in low light situations it has a matte, almost paper-like look; in direct sunlight, it shimmers in a way that almost looks like television static. The thin, long hour markers and needle-like hands further fit with the slim motif and minimalist look, and while the dial is just a bit too expansive, the overall design of the Christopher Ward is both handsome and original.

Powering the watch is an ETA/Peseux 7001, a hand-winding movement just over 2mm thick that’s popped up in a number of dress watches (in various guises) since it debuted in the early 1970s. Its an incredibly simple movement, which you can clearly see through the Malvern’s case back, making it a reliable watch and an easy one to service, given its ubiquity, making it a relatively easy watch to own and service in the long-term.

Verdict: Like many of Christopher Ward’s other watches, the Malvern 595 feels like an incredible value for money, especially when you look towards similar watches that run the same movement but can’t match them it regarding price or thickness. But there’s a lot more than its scant proportions to make it stand out; those who’ve grown tired of the vintage-inspired movement in watches will probably appreciate the watch’s modern aesthetic. And while the 39mm diameter might be a sticking point for some, there will be plenty of buyers out there who will appreciate the larger size.

Key Specs

Movement: ETA/Peseux 7001
Winding: Manual
Case diameter: 39mm
Case height: 5.95mm
Water resistance: 30m

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May 30, 2018 / Comments Off

935

Is Audioengine’s A5+ Wireless the Best Bookshelf Speaker Under $500?

For years, Audioengine’s A5+ powered speakers have been regarded as some of the best desktop and bookshelf speakers you can buy. Audioengine designs and manufactures everything in the speaker from the ground up — it’s a bonafide audiophile-grade speaker. Recently, in 2018, Audioengine released the A5+ Wireless speakers, which are essentially identical to the Audioengine A5+ speakers, just with built-in Bluetooth so you can stream music. No need to wire the speakers up to a computer, CD player or turntable to play music, although you still can.

The Good: The A5+ Wireless speakers produce the same excellent sound quality of the A5+, but with built-in Bluetooth receiver and 24-bit DAC, it’s extremely easy to stream Spotify or Tidal from your smartphone. The speakers support high-res streaming: Bluetooth aptX, SBC and AAC. The speakers have numerous inputs and connectivity options, so if you don’t want to stream music you can connect the stereo pair to a turntable, stereo receiver or desktop. Audioengine offers a 30-day “audition period,” allowing you to get a free refund if you don’t like them (but you will).

Who They’re For: Anybody looking for versatile high-quality bookshelf speakers that aren’t super expensive. If streaming is your thing, it’s as simple as flicking a switch on the speakers and connecting via your smartphone’s or computer’s Bluetooth settings — it’s that simple. It’s easy enough to connect them to other stereo components, too. Also, they can be paired with a subwoofer.

Watch Out For: Sometimes the volume of the speakers and your smartphone speakers gets a bit mixed up; if the volume of the smartphone is really low, can be basically impossible to turn the volume up straight from the speaker. Also, the “knob feel” of the volume knob on the right speaker isn’t the best we’ve felt. It’s not a multiroom speaker and there’s built-in virtual assistant.

Alternatives: If you don’t plan on streaming music, you can pick up Audioengine’s several-year-old A5+ powered speakers and get the same audio quality for $100 less on Amazon.

Review: The A5+ Wireless speakers are nearly indistinguishable from the A5+ powered speakers you fell in love with years ago. Aesthetically, the only real change, aside from the Bluetooth antennae, is that the tweeter of each speaker is now centralized, instead of skewed to one side like on the A5+. But they produce fantastic stereo sound and more versatile than ever. However you choose to listen to them, frankly, they’re going to sound fantastic.

I spent the majority of my time with the A5+ Wireless streaming music (Spotify) to them, as that’s really what’s new and neat about these speakers. As good as they are, there are some things to consider before buying the A5+ Wireless speakers. They’re near-field speakers, so for optimal listening, you want to position the speakers so that they are both slightly angled towards you, not straight on.

The A5+ Wireless speakers handle midrange and highs very well, which is especially noticeable on tracks like Enya’s “Orinoco Flow,” and even the bass stands up on tracks like Kendrick Lamar’s “All The Stars.” Although, if you want to add a subwoofer to the stereo pair, that’s easy enough. In truth, these speakers handle the gamut of songs really well, especially in a near-field setup, and they do sound really good at high volumes. So crank it.

Verdict: At the $500 range, the A5+ Wireless are really the cream of the crop when it comes to wireless bookshelf speakers. It’s easy to stream hi-res audio from your smartphone, tablet or computer, or you can connect them to any of your existing hi-fi components. They’re versatile, sound good with or without a subwoofer, and would look good in any living room or office.

What Others Are Saying:

• “While the Bluetooth connectivity is a great feature, it doesn’t sound as good as the wired connection. This is no surprise, as we’ve never heard a wireless connection that sounds better than wired. Overall, though, it sounds very good for Bluetooth and in many cases, such as parties, the convenience factor is really what you’re looking for. When you’re ready to sit down with some friends for a critical listening session, the A5+ Wireless excels there too.” — Staff, Audio Advice

• “The Audioengine A5+ Wireless bring vibrant and lifelike sound to small and medium-sized rooms, adding the convenience of a wireless connection while maintaining the same outstanding audio performance we’ve loved for over a decade.” — Parker Hall, Digital Trends

• “Audioengine’s A5+ Wireless system delivers a high-quality Bluetooth stream in a bookshelf-style form factor that offers stereo separation and avoids dynamics-crushing DSP. Some listeners might want to beef up the audio with a subwoofer, but the system sounds great without it.” — Tim Gideon, PCMAG

Key Specs

Type: 2.0 powered (active) bookshelf-style speaker system
Output: 150-watt peak power total
Input: 3.5mm stereo mini-jack, RCA
Drivers: five-inch Kevlar woofers, 3/4-inch silk dome tweeters
Connectivity: Bluetooth 4.0; supports aptX, AAC and SBC

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May 14, 2018 / Comments Off

843

A legendary name returns to the track: the Brabham BT62

Does 730ps-per-tonne sound good to you? Keep reading…

There is a history of big names from Formula One using their motorsport heritage to sell cars – some more successful than others.

The moniker of ‘win on Sunday, sell on Monday’ has been employed by some of the greatest names throughout motorsport. Ferrari have been at it since the forties, Porsche, Ford and Audi are among those to have employed the tactic in endurance racing, and McLaren went so far as to name their hypercar the F1 in the nineties, as if the name (and blistering performance) wasn’t enough to turn heads.

Now, another brand has emerged that is looking to capitalise on its motorsport heritage with the launch of a customer vehicle, though the gap from win-to-sell is considerably longer than the accepted norm.

Introducing the Brabham BT62

Packing 700bhp and 492 ft-lbs of torque courtesy of a 5.4-ltre V8 engine, with a dry weight of less than 1000kg all wrapped up in a CARBON FIBRE body that looks like a Bugatti Chiron and a McLaren Senna had a baby, the BT62 is designed to be a mid-engine track weapon.

Gallery: Pictures from the Brabham BT62 launch

As you can see from the pictures, that power-to-weight ratio needs a lot of downforce to keep it on the straight and narrow. Thankfully, Brabham has thought of this and claims the BT62 is capable of delivering over 1200kg of downforce thanks to an aerodynamic package, which, coupled with Michelin slicks to be developed in conjunction with the French rubber specialists should help keep it glued to the track.

Brabham says the car has been designed to ‘demand more from its driver,’ and buyers will be able to join the Brabham driver development programme, which should hopefully mean BT62 drivers keep their very expensive toy on the asphalt.

Prices start from £1 million plus local taxes, but that’s before options have been considered, and production will be limited to just 70 cars – meaning that price tag should at least grant owners some exclusivity.

That production run is a nod to the 70-year heritage of the Brabham name in motorsport; the first 35 examples produced will pay further tribute to the 35 Brabham F1 team victories, earned between 1962 and 1992.

Multiple Le Mans winner David Brabham, son of founder of Brabham racing team Jack Brabham, unveiled the car at Australia House in London, alongside the BT19 racer that took Jack to victory in the 1966 French Grand Prix, with the BT62 being liveried to match its historic counterpart.

What do you think of the Brabham BT62? Would you buy one? If not – what would you have instead?

May 7, 2018 / Comments Off

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First Impressions: We Drive the All-New Mercedes-Benz G 550 and AMG G 63

We drove the new Mercedes G550 and AMG G 63 in southern France this week. It’s the first new version since the rugged machine launched in 1979. It’s had updates, of course, but this is the first time they really started over with it. Our full review will post next week, but here’s a quick taste to whet your appetite. – Eric Adams

Who It’s For: Depends on which model we’re talking about. If it’s the G 550, you’re into sunrises, long runs on the beach, and hard-core off-roading. If it’s the AMG G 63, you’ve never actually seen a sunrise, you go to the beach mostly to burn off a hangover, and you enjoy blasting past lesser machines on the highway at triple-digit speeds while towering three feet above everyone else.

Updates: Well it’s been 40 years so pretty much everything is updated. But the highlights are a new front axle design that improves stability both on-road and off, all the safety and driver-assist features the G-Class never had, and the barest hint of aerodynamic tuning to minimize the ever-present wind noise as much as possible without compromising the car’s signature look.

Verdict: Two thumbs up if you’re in the G550; two middle-fingers up if you’re rocking the AMG.

Key Specs
Engine: 4.0-liter twin-turbochanged V8
Transmission: nine-speed automatic; front, center and rear locking differentials
Horsepower: 416; 577 horsepower
Torque: 450; 627 lb-ft
Price: TBA

The 2019 Mercedes-Benz A-Class Finally Shows Its Face

After months of hints, teases and a slow trickle of information, Mercedes finally unveiled the new 2019 A-Class. Read the Story

May 4, 2018 / Comments Off

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2019 Lamborghini Aventador S Roadster First Drive Review: Refined bull

It fires up the same way as the fixed-roof coupe, via a missile launcher-style shield hiding a small hexagonal Start button. With a firm press the starter whirs as fuel dumps into all 12 cylinders, igniting 6.5 liters of air and gasoline in a riot of internal combustion. But with its roof off, the $460,247 Lamborghini Aventador S Roadster stirs to life with an incrementally different auditory punch, a cascade of deep, raspy notes pours more clearly out of the enormous exhaust pipes and into the snug cabin.

Sound connoisseurs may notice the more mechanical whirs of valvetrain seeping into the cockpit, but we suspect the vast majority of Aventador S Roadster buyers are here for the sun – no doubt the reason Lamborghini organized this particular test-drive in Malibu, Calif. Our tester awaits with its twin carbon-fiber roof panels stowed in the nose, a rather convenient state because, as memory serves from our first-generation Aventador Roadster, the lid removal process requires a fairly awkward dance.

Climbing inside is a considerably easier task when this Lambo is opened up to the elements. There’s no head-ducking or awkward sliding, though once settled you will struggle for a place to stow your cell phone. Apart from the shallow glove box there are no other storage compartments, just a tiny USB/12-volt outlet beneath a flip-up lid that’s barely big enough to hold a key fob. At least a small concession to convenience comes in the form of a removable cupholder mounted on the passenger side of the center console.

When the massive V12 stirs to life, any concerns about practicality quickly fade away. The S Roadster gains the same improvements made to the S coupe, among them smoother suspension and improved aerodynamics (more downforce or less drag, depending on spoiler settings), the addition of four-wheel steering and a 38-horsepower gain, for a total of 729 hp. Also welcome is the ability to independently control suspension, steering and engine modes in what Lamborghini dubs the EGO setting.

That said, it’s all but impossible to ignore the human ego when rolling through town in an al fresco Lamborghini: The pointy two-seater cuts through traffic like a blade, leaving a wake of camera phone-wielding gawkers and swivel-necked onlookers fixated on its origami edges. But more crucially to those who care more about driving than posing, the updated Lambo delivers a palpably different left-seat experience compared with the first-gen Roadster.

Like the earlier model, structural reinforcements add 110 pounds to the curb weight and incur a one-tenth-of-a-second penalty in the 0-to-62-mph sprint, doing the deed in 3 seconds flat. Top speed remains unchanged at 217 mph. But in this case, the Aventador is better equipped to mask the extra mass thanks to the new four-wheel steering system, which has the effect of virtually shrinking or lengthening the wheelbase by 20 or 27 inches, respectively.

On the tight stretches of Mulholland Canyon, I can feel the tail swing sideways while turning in to each corner, making the car feel like it’s more willing to hustle its weight into the bend. In fact, the effect is sometimes so pronounced I need to delicately manage my steering inputs so the weight transfer isn’t too dramatic. Similarly, Sport and Corsa modes require careful throttle modulation because the effect is so direct: jam the gas, and you’ll lurch forward obtusely like a 15-year-old in driver’s ed. But while the Aventador still feels somewhat big-boned and lacks the overall agility of the Huracán (and especially the Huracán Performante), the four-wheel steering goes a long way toward making it feel smaller than it actually is. The effect also comes in handy when pulling u-turns, revealing a noticeably tighter turning radius.

When flinging the Aventador through canyons there’s some safeguard in the fact that the electronically controlled Haldex differential automatically adjusts the front/rear bias for optimal grip. It takes a bit of aggression, especially on warm weather days, to make the hulking 355-mm rear tires slip. Counterintuitively, the electronic stability control lets you get away with more shenanigans in Sport mode (which biases 90 percent of power distribution to the tail) as opposed to Corsa mode (which is tuned for optimal lap times and sends only 80 percent of power to the rear, making for fewer tail-happy slides but quicker, more efficient lines through corners).

We weren’t able to drive the Roadster with the hardtop in place, but our recollection of our track drive in the previous-gen model suggests a rock-solid chassis that enables a high amount of confidence. The Roadster felt stiff and responsive during our canyon drive, suggesting little or no perceptible compromise to the fixed-roof car.

Through all the enthusiastic canyon carving and moderate-to-high-speed cruising, the cabin remains a surprisingly turbulence-free space, largely thanks to the considerable distance between the seat bottom and the airflow above. A relatively still pocket of air can be preserved by keeping all three windows up, but lowering the rear window amplifies the sound of the sonorous V12. Also neat is the beveled top edge of the windows, which adds a jewelry-like feeling to the interior which can feel otherwise plasticky unless the optional carbon-fiber trim box is ticked. But as with the coupe, there’s a disconcerting lack of rear three-quarter visibility, which makes it particularly critical to mind the side mirrors (or just drive so fast there’s nobody behind you to hit when you change lanes).

The seven-speed automated single-clutch gearbox enjoys some refinements with the S iteration, but there’s still an inherent awkwardness to the shift action unless you’re near the roadster’s wailing 8,400-rpm redline. Trundle around in Strada mode, and the shifts are innocuously smooth, even leisurely. Things get crisper in Sport, but under moderate to mildly aggressive acceleration, there’s still a jerky pause before the next gear is engaged. Hammer the throttle, a perfectly normal thing to do on a racetrack (but cause for arrest on public roads), and the digital tach on the TFT quickly climbs as the titanium exhaust spits out an angry tune that gets interrupted by a brief staccato pop while the transmission jams into the next gear. As fun (and effective) as it may be to drive an Aventador S Roadster at that level, the spectacle and speed are simply untenable on public roads. Unfortunately, there’s no mellow middle ground, unlike in the Huracán, whose dual-clutch transmission is equally adept at low-speed loafing and high-speed frenetics.

The Lamborghini Aventador S Roadster is sharp, brash and more than a bit refined than its predecessor – but still an unapologetically imperfect beast thanks to its graceless gearbox and brutish manners. Yet in spite of its shortcomings, this strain of bull reminds of everything we love about mechanical charisma. The Huracán Performante may have all the right moves with its impeccable track manners and tightly contained dynamics, but the Aventador still reminds us of the days when supercars weren’t so tractable and obedient, but rather wild, snorting and more than a bit daunting to drive fast. As a rolling expression of excess, it’s hard not to fall for the open-air Aventador S’s naturally aspirated scream for attention.

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April 25, 2018 / Comments Off

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Ferrari 488 Pista Prototype Drive | Pants-soiling straight-line performance

Independent studies confirm that Lotus Elise drivers are 221.6 times more likely to spontaneously dispose of light-colored undergarments after driving on curvy roads. That’s because the weight distribution of a mid-engine car encourages novice drivers to inadvertently ask the rear wheels to pass the fronts in the middle of a corner. Adding insult to staining, the layout’s resulting low polar moment of inertia ensures that this rotation happens more quickly than the average person’s sphincter-startle clench reflex.

The flip side is that even the most powerful mid-engine cars have enough weight over their rear wheels to make straight-line acceleration a worry-free affair.

Well, they used to. Full-throttle acceleration in the Ferrari 488 Pista is genuinely terrifying. Wheelspin is a genuine threat at any road-legal speed — and when that happens, its rear end steps out with the same violence as the car accelerates. And that is saying something.

The 488 Pista is diabolically quick. Like, hallelujah-hold-on-tight, praise-the-lord, scream-like-a-child and slap-yo-momma quick. Or, in slightly more objective terms, the Ferrari’s claimed 7.6-second sprint from a standstill to 200 km/h (124 mph) is but 0.3 second behind that of the 1,000-hp Bugatti Veyron 16.4. When we say quick, we mean QUICK.

Perhaps too quick for the road, so it’s a good thing the car is literally named after the track. The Pista is the latest in the lineage of harder-core Ferraris that began with the 360 Challenge Stradale. The 360CS, like the F430 Scuderia (“Team”) and 458 Speciale (“Special”) that followed, was a little quicker than the regular car, a little more devoid of creature comforts and a lot louder. The same basic recipe applies to the 488, though in its transition from GTB to Pista (say “peas-ta”), its engine gets a bigger power boost than any of its predecessors. Boasting 720 metric horsepower, or 710 American ponies, the Pista makes 49 hp more than the already absurdly powerful 488 GTB.

The expected weight-savings measures are also present, accounting for a claimed 198-pound reduction in total mass. Ten-percent-stiffer springs and recalibrated magnetorheological dampers offer tighter body control, and Michelin Sport Cup 2 tires conspire with those changes to generate massive cornering grip.

But more on that later — the star of this prototype preview drive was the engine, Ferrari’s award-winning 3.9-liter flat-plane-crankshaft V8. Ferrari claims that half of the engine’s functional parts are new compared with the F154CB engine in the 488 GTB — enough to merit it a new code. Say hello to the F154CD.

The revised engine weighs 40 pounds less, and Ferrari claims that it has 17 percent less rotating inertia thanks in part to a lighter flywheel and crankshaft, titanium Pankl connecting rods and hollow intake valves. The engine breathes cooler air thanks to intakes that have been relocated onto the rear deck, out of the path of the hot air coming from the front-mounted radiators.

A new carbon-fiber intake plenum has 60 percent shorter runners, recontoured camshafts provide for 1 mm of additional valve lift and freer-flowing, ultralight Inconel tubular exhaust headers replace the GTB’s heavy cast manifolds. Bore and stroke are unchanged, but the F154CD receives new pistons that bump compression 0.2 point to 9.6:1, and ignition timing is advanced by 2 degrees.

Those are pretty granular facts, but they’re important because of what we haven’t discussed — there’s been no mention of an ECU reflash or bigger turbos to create additional power. That’s because, where turbocharged engines are concerned, there’s a right way and a wrong way to make more power — and Bigger Turbos, Moar Boost is the wrong way.

Indeed, an exceedingly high level of turbocharger control is what defines the F154 engine — it’s allowed to make full torque only when the transmission is in seventh gear. Peak boost is up marginally, from 20.3 to 21.8 psi, and the turbocharger housings are new, but only so that Ferrari could install turbine speed sensors. Knowing the exact speed of each turbo, rather than inferring it from boost pressure, allows the Pista’s computers to better control output, to sync the output from each bank of cylinders and to let the turbos run to within 1,000 rpm of their 160,000-rpm maximum speed. The margin of error in the GTB’s estimation model required a 5,000-to-6,000-rpm buffer.

In the first six gears, the computers deploy four reduced-boost strategies (first through third, fourth, fifth and sixth gears) with increasing midrange output — but each mode is designed to help the engine feel like a naturally aspirated engine with a 6,750-rpm torque peak.

It works — this is a turbocharged engine that rewards revs. The engine’s stupendous output and willingness to pull right to the limiter, combined with the seven-speed dual-clutch transmission’s short, incredibly closely spaced gear ratios makes for a blistering full-throttle experience where each gear seems to last only a fraction of a second before it’s time for an upshift. Since the engine’s 710-hp maximum output occurs in a plateau from 6,750 to 8,000 rpm, full power is once again available after each shift. Acceleration is relentless and otherworldly.

By comparison, the prodigious cornering grip seems entirely of this world. At its limit, the Pista exhibits just enough understeer to impart a sense of stability, but the smallest twitch of your right foot is enough to overwhelm the rear and summon the aid of stability control.

The latest version of Ferrari’s Side Slip Control is pure dynamic sorcery, programmed with the singular mission of adding speed. In its more aggressive modes, it allows significant tail-out antics without letting you spin and prevents the car from exploding sideways in response to the transmission’s positively brutal full-throttle upshifts, providing a significant safety net with no penalty whatsoever. This is the kind of stability control that you won’t ever want to turn off.

Especially when you experience just how quickly 710 hp can overwhelm the this car’s rear tires. The Pista encourages intimate relations with the oft-ignored area of the accelerator pedal that’s located between “off” and “on.” Ferrari deserves praise for having the courage to limit the engine’s torque in lower gears; any driver of this Ferrari will have no choice but to exercise additional restraint.

Then, the 488 Pista proves to be far more docile and tractable than any of its predecessors. Driven around town, the Pista’s ride is surprisingly unbrutal, the transmission executes smooth shifts and the engine will lug along happily at just over idle. It takes but one errant stab at the throttle to remind you, however, that Ferrari has flipped the rules of the mid-engine sports car. The corners? Those you can deal with. But when the road turns straight, you’d better clench tight before hitting that pedal.

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April 17, 2018 / Comments Off

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Scarbo Performance SVF1 First Drive Review | A hot-rodder’s take on vintage F1

THERMAL, Calif. — Some turn their nose to the sky as soon as they hear the term, “replica.” They only care for “originals,” cars that are inevitably destined to collect dust in someone’s impeccably clean garage, preserved for posterity, and never revved in anger or given the beans in fear of fouling up an “investment.” Joe Scarbo thinks this “mere existence” is a boring one, that cars are meant to be driven hard – period. That’s the outlook that spurned him to create the SVF1, an ass-kickin’ track weapon so good, and so demanding, our body quit well before we wanted to hand back the keys.

Once you realize what the Scarbo Performance SVF1 actually is, you’ll get it. The open-wheeled, open-cockpit retro-racer is modeled after a 1967 Ferrari F312 Formula One car, and many, justifiably, consider its sultry, minimalist lines to be among the prettiest F1 designs. However, the guts under its beautifully hand-beaten aluminum exterior are more SoCal hot-rodder than devout Tifosi replica. Made even clearer that this track beast resides in the former is what powers it; a Red, White, and Blue-blooded GM-sourced, 430-horsepower LS1 V8.

You can’t get much more American than that.

Our date with the SVF1 occurred at The Thermal Club near Palm Springs, an automotive oasis plopped squarely in the middle of an agricultural hub. The freshly finished facility is just a few hours outside of Los Angeles, but unlike the better-known Willow Springs, the track surface here is absolutely pristine, on top of which there was a fine mist of sand, a condition which kept both us and the SVF1 on our tiptoes.

To provide the perfect soundtrack for our track adventure, Scarbo married the LS1’s fly-by-wire throttle system with eight velocity stacks, providing an otherworldly induction yowl. This is punctuated by a guttural exhaust featuring an eight-into-one collector with a three-inch exit. Upon startup, the SVF1 is sends shivers through your body, and like chain lightning it propagates through the bodies of anyone within 60 feet. Grunt and stamina are required to shift the transaxle 5-speed manual transmission from a 986-generation Porsche Boxster mated up to the LS1. No flappy paddles or dual-clutches here.

You get into the SVF1 by placing your feet onto the softly padded seat and sliding your butt in-between its fuel tank, which straddle your hips and posterior. Clip into the five-point harness and you’re eyeball level with the truly massive Avon race-spec slicks. It isn’t until you’re strapped in, priming the fuel pump with a mechanical toggle, and looking out through your helmet’s thin visor that you begin to realize the raw effort you’re about to experience.

As we headed toward one of Thermal’s smaller configurations, we don’t have much time to consider the SVF1’s $112,500 price tag, our inexperience with this track, or the fact that the SVF1’s only traction control was the heat in the slicks and the restraint of our right race boot. Pit exit comes before we can dwell on it, and then we’re onto the wind-swept track.

When the Avon slicks are hot, they’ve got monumental grip. Cold, you might as well be roller-blading on ice. Given the lack of traction control, and the dusty track surface, we use the first lap to get well-acquainted with the SVF1’s instantaneous throttle response, the shifter’s heft, and its unassisted quick ratio steering. Those early laps were messy and full of on- and off-throttle oversteer. There’s also zero downforce to aid in traction management. Eventually the tires got gummy, the sand was swept off the racing line, and our bravery meter ticked closer to “James Hunt” territory.

Thanks to the staggering grip served up by the warm tires, the next thing that becomes apparent is the muscle needed to wrangle the SVF1 – and our lack of it. Just as you get to what your arms protest are the car’s limits, and the SVF1 offers another quarter turn of steering lock and even more grip. There’s also nary an ounce of roll in the entire chassis, although there was considerable roll in our necks as the g-forces increased throughout our session. The experience of working up the courage to stay flat over a crest and pin the SVF1 into a set of S-curves is easily worth a sore neck.

The aural cacophony produced by its eight-into-one exhaust is unhinged divinity. On throttle, the mighty motor sings, but on overrun, a crackling, rolling salvo of cannon-fire reverberates through the cockpit. Today, 400 horsepower barely registers in the performance world, but the key here is power-to-weight ratio. The SVF1 weighs less than 1,300 lbs – anything else would be drastic overkill. Of course, Joe says he’d love for a customer to spec one with an LS7 behind the driver one day.

The SVF1’s fuel tank running low, we turned into the pits with dead sore arms and killed the engine. As we opened up our visor, the only thing we could mutter was an astonished, “holy crap.” Joe, being a consummate gear head, only laughed. He knows he doesn’t need to say much to sell anyone on the car.

SoCal hot-rodders aren’t known for building classic European racing replicas, or truth be told, cars designed to navigate something other than a straight line. But the SVF1 turns those outdated ideas on their heads, as not only does it remaster a classic shape that’d likely never see any form of racing or track experience ever again, but does so in a way that doesn’t require a Scrooge McDuck-esque fortune to buy, run, or insure. Garage queens and their owners be damned.

It’s been days since we drove the SVF1. Hell, we’re still grinning.

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February 21, 2018 / Comments Off

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2018 Ferrari Portofino First Drive Review | Forget all about the California

It’s about 9,500 miles between the Golden State and a swanky former fishing village on the Italian Riviera known as Portofino, where pastel-painted cottages mix it with celebs and super yachts. For Ferrari, however, it’s a gap of 10 years between the launch of the California, its first front-engined V8 sports car and this, the Mk. II version, the Ferrari Portofino.

“California is such an iconic name,” says Nicola Boari, head of Ferrari product marketing. “Trying to stay close wasn’t a good thing. Portofino is discreet, it’s not as splashy as Monte Carlo.”

The California was aimed at a new breed of Ferrari customer: younger, with a family, women. In one sense it’s done that job well, in another it’s failed. Boari admits with a shrug that not many women have actually bought a California, but for a car launched just as Lehmann Brothers was gasping its last, the car has attracted a new sort of customer just the same and attracted 35 percent of Ferrari’s total sales. Last year, that numbered 8,398 vehicles.

“Same sex, but a different type of customer,” says Boari, adding that California customers use their cars 150-percent more than typical Ferrari sports car owners, tend to use their cars every day and 30 percent of them even use the tiny rear seats.

“We had to learn new things,” he admits.

A lot of those “new things” have been crammed into this car, which goes on sale this August in the United States priced at $229,551. The basic premise remains the same: a 3.8-liter, twin-turbo V8 driving the rear wheels via a seven-speed, dual-clutch transmission and an electronically controlled limited-slip differential in a rear-mounted transaxle. That’s 592 horsepower at 7,500 rpm and 560 pound-feet of torque at 3,000 rpm. The torque “curve” continues on from there with a profile resembling a pool table. It’s good for 199 mph, 0-62 mph in 3.5 seconds, 0-124 mph in 10.8 seconds and gas mileage in the European test cycle of 31.7 mpg – this is no ordinary family vehicle.

The 2+2 Pinifarina-designed aluminium body has been completely redesigned, but retains the same basic dimensions as the outgoing California. Dealers reported that the size was just about right, so the Portofino has grown by only 0.62 inch in length and 1.1 inches in width. It’s lighter by 176.4 pounds, thanks mainly to a lighter body construction and interior, and stiffer thanks to more integral parts and aluminum pans under the floors. Thinner and lighter front seats have freed up almost 2 inches of rear legroom. There’s an all-new interior with more modern controls, a touchscreen and better air con and sat nav,. All were criticisms of the old car. This new Ferrari even accepts Apple CarPlay (though not Android Auto), but in Europe it’ll cost you the equivalent of $3,320.

The California’s award-winning engine remains largely unchanged, but punches out another 39 hp thanks mainly to breathing improvements, with better air intakes and a big-bore exhaust with electronic valves in the mufflers to pull the air through more effectively at different engine speeds. It also enhances the noise. Ferrari still limits the engine’s torque in the first three gears to encourage it to rev and makes it feel more like a naturally aspirated unit. It also now comes with an intelligent oil pump, which increases its pressure when required. At the rear, the Portofino has been given Ferrari’s latest software for the limited-slip differential and stability controls.

The California’s two-piece folding hard top dominated its looks, giving it a hunchback appearance with the top down. For the Portofino, Ferrari spent time camouflaging the rear deck’s height with shapes and colors, though the space required by that top still makes this a rather weirdly proportioned sports car. There’s a litany of very pricey optional carbon-fiber panels, but in reality the unadorned car feels modern and relatively good looking with the top up, which can now be erected and folded on the move.

The interior is heavily redesigned with a busy but attractive dashboard. Those rear seats are still only suitable for shopping bags, or children no bigger than shopping bags, but it frees up enough space in the trunk to admit three airline carry-ons with the roof up. The driver’s binnacle is a strange mix of an analogue tachometer flanked by a digital speedometer and ancillary instruments. That steering wheel might look great, but it’s hard to tell since it’s far too crowded with turn indicators, the horn, lights, damping, and traction and chassis-setting switches, plus the starter. The fixed position gear-change paddles are behind the wheel. Most of it becomes obvious after a while, but the indicators aren’t well placed for the fingers and the switch action is poor. The rest of the dash is mostly good, with clear graphics and a fast response from the navigation system, but some of the switches and rotary controls wobble alarmingly.

The driver’s seating position is good, with lots of power adjustments for steering and seat, but the pedal box is too small for big feet, with overhanging trim catching shoe welts as they travel from brake to throttle and vice versa. In a car of this performance, that’s just scary.

Pull the right-hand fixed-position paddle and the ‘box engages first and the clutches grumble. At maneuvering speed, the Portofino feels unwieldy, with poor views of the body’s extremes. There’s also driveline shunt, and the rear suspension is noisy over bumps. This cacophony was joined by a troubling rattle from our test car’s passenger door.

Speed up, however, and the double wishbone suspension’s magnetorheological dampers allow those big 20-inch Pirelli P Zero tires to sail over the worst bumps in Southern Italy – for a 200 mph car, the Portofino rides very well indeed. That drivetrain shunt disappears at about 25 mph, and the engine pulls hard from just over 1,000 rpm.

Ferrari test driver Fabrizio Toschi says that round the company’s Fiorano test track, the Portofino is only about 2 seconds off the pace set by the 488 sports coupé, which has 69 hp more. Get on it and you’ll believe him. The V8 rasps like the brass section in a college band (Ferraris don’t shriek anymore) and down changes from the dual clutch sound like firecrackers, but it certainly does the business.

That bodyshell feels as stiff as a new pair of jeans, with barely any twisting or shake. While the Portofino feels marginally stiffer with the roof up, it’s impressively taut in all conditions. Just the tiniest squeeze of the throttle has those twin-scroll turbos spooled up, firing the car down the road like a dart. You work out where you want to be, press the loud pedal, and you’re there. It’s really that quick. And if the turbocharged V8 doesn’t quite have the quick response of a naturally aspirated rival, it’s close enough not to matter.

The dual clutch has well-spaced ratios and changes cogs as fast as you’d ever want, especially with Sport dialed in on the manettino selector. Most impressive is the chassis’ stability, which is partly to do with the electronic stability control and rear diff that are constantly working to keep the car tracking straight and true, even at speeds where they’d throw away the key if they could catch you.

Not quite so convincing is the steering, Ferrari’s second attempt at an electronically-assisted system. It’s well-weighted and accurate, and has decent on-center response, but it feels artificial and on occasions imparts far too much torque on turn in. Worse is that it simply doesn’t give you a faithful understanding of the front end grip, so you drive on trust. Toschi said the polished roads of Southern Italy didn’t flatter the system and we’ll give him an even break here, but the fact is that rival companies, like Jaguar, do electronically-assisted steering better.

Taken in the round, however, the Portofino is so absurdly easy to drive and live with that you have to keep reminding yourself that it’s also a very serious 200-mph sports car. They used to say that the California wasn’t a proper Ferrari, but now that the company is developing an SUV, it’s a moot point, really. The Portofino is as good a car as ever carried the Scuderia Ferrari Cavallino, which is as fine a compliment as you can pay to the California’s successor.

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February 13, 2018 / Comments Off

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2018 Lamborghini Huracán Performante Second Drive | The Lambo of the moment

Down the front straight, past the pits, over the start/finish line, sixth gear at 140 mph. Suddenly, the shrieking wail of the 2018 Lamborghini Huracán Performante’s mid-mounted V-10 and hits me right between the eyes. It’s an easy shot, since I’m wearing an open-face helmet.

Speed is not a problem for the Performante. This new lighter and more powerful version of the Huracán is the best-performing Lambo of all time. It just set the new production-car record around the Nürburgring Nordschleife of 6 minutes, 52.1 seconds. That’s 35 seconds quicker than the standard Huracán. And Lambo says it can accelerate from 0 to 62 mph in 2.9 seconds, which is as quick as the Aventador S. Its 202-mph top speed still lags the top end of the V-12-powered Aventador by 15 mph, but does it really matter?

Completely flat, smooth as glass and just 1.8 miles around, Thermal’s South Palm Circuit isn’t exactly the Nordschleife, but the bathrooms are much fancier. Built in 2014, the luxurious Thermal Motorsports Club outside of Palm Springs, Calif., is an ideal facility for us to taste the 2018 Huracán Performante. If owners of the $274,390 supercar want a safe and controlled environment to wring out their new toy, chances are it will be at private amusement parks such as this.

In the age of twin-turbos, the Huracán’s naturally aspirated V10 is a (glorious) anachronism. In the Performante, it has been cranked up to 640 hp at 8,000 rpm and 442 lb-ft of torque at 6,500 rpm, a 30-hp and 40-lb-ft increase over the standard all-wheel-drive model, and it’s all above 6,000 rpm.
Displacement remains 5.2 liters, but Lambo’s engineers added lighter titanium intake valves, more aggressive camshafts, a less-restrictive air intake and a lighter freer-flowing exhaust system. The engine’s compression ratio remains a stratospheric 12.7:1, and it runs into a very aggressive rev limiter at 8,500 rpm.

The Performante is 88 pounds lighter than the standard Huracán Coupe thanks to liberal use of the company’s patented Forged Composite, which it calls the lightest, strongest and most innovative material ever used by Lamborghini. Chopped fibers embedded in a matrix of resins, it’s sort of like carbon fiber 2.0, although its finish looks like high-tech camo with golden flecks. It’s all over the Performante, including its massive rear spoiler, rear bumper and diffuser, front spoiler and its engine cover, which weights 21 percent less than the piece it replaced. Inside you see more Forged Composite on the dash, doors and console.

Lambo also stiffened up the Performante’s suspension by 10 percent, the sway bars are 15 percent more aggressive and the A-arm bushings are 50 percent stiffer. But the coolest piece of the Performante, and what’s really going to wow the crowd at local Cars and Coffee, is the new active aerodynamics system.
Officially called Aerodynamica Lamborghini Attive (ALA), the patented system opens and closes a flap in the front spoiler depending on conditions. When closed, the spoiler creates downforce for high-speed cornering and full brake conditions. When the small electric motor opens the flaps, which takes 0.2 second, it redirects the airflow through an internal channel and the underside of the car. This reduces drag, increasing acceleration and top speed.

The fully automatic system also controls two internal ducts connected to inner channels of the rear wing. When the flaps are closed, the fixed rear wing works in a traditional manner, creating downforce and aiding cornering and braking. Lambo says it generates 750 percent more vertical downforce than the wingless standard Huracán Coupe.

In high-throttle conditions, ALA opens the flaps, which routes the air through the rear wing’s inner channels and through ridges underneath the wing, reducing drag. But here’s the cool part: The air channel is split left and right and the flaps work independently, allowing aero vectoring for high-speed cornering. The ALA system can increase downforce and traction on the inside wheel, counteracting the natural cornering forces.

After 10 laps, it’s hard not to be madly in love with this ridiculously antisocial supercar. Lambo says it weighs 3,047 pounds dry, and out on the track it feels small and light. Not exactly Miata miniature, but it’s tossable and it likes to turn on the brakes. It also understeers a bit on power out just to keep you alive, but it will drift if you chuck it in and get back on the power quickly. Do it, it’s also easy to catch with a small amount of counter steer.

Our codriver agrees. Sinya Sean Michemi races a Huracán in Lamborghini’s Blancpain Super Trofeo North America. “Compared to the original Huracán, it feels quite a bit less understeery,” he yells over the Performante’s screaming V-10, which is mounted just inches behind our heads.

Most of the corners on this circuit are handled in second gear, although there are two good, long straights where we touch sixth gear and get to enjoy the upper-rpm pull and full song of the big V-10. The straights also reveal the silky and rapid gear changes from the Lambo’s dual-clutch 7-speed, which Lambo geared perfectly to keep that goddess of an engine above 6,000 rpm.

There’s also a three-apex right-hander with a fast third-gear entry at the end of the backstraight. It’s the most challenging section of the track, and the Performante’s stability is impressive as we enter hard on the brakes and drop it down to second to finish the corner hard on the power. It’s massive 20-inch Pirelli P Zero Corsa’s are incredibly forgiving, and the compliance of the suspension over the track’s tall curbing is a nice surprise.

It’s almost stupid how easy it is to drive this car fast. The Huracán’s gargantuan cross-drilled carbon-ceramic brakes are foolproof, with telepathic pedal feel and awesome heat resistance even after constant lapping on a 100-degree day. There was a time not too many years ago that Lamborghini brakes would have caught fire and failed under such conditions.

Lamborghini’s ANIMA system offers three modes: Strada, Sport and Corsa. In Strada, Lambo says traction and stability are prioritized, and it’s easy to find the point at which its electronic watchdogs step in on the track. In Sport, the all-wheel-drive system offers a more rear-wheel-drive bias, and the stability control system loosens up enough for some light rotation. Also, the transmission will upshift for you, even in manual mode. In Corsa, the transmission is completely manual, and the stability control allows for plenty of oversteer.

Lamborghini says demand for the Performante is high. However, buyers should know that there’s a Spyder version coming and it’s sure to steal thunder from this hardtop, especially in the States.

But the Performante’s real issue is Lamborghini’s new SUV, which will begin to overshadow the supercar the instant it is unveiled on Dec. 4. The much-anticipated Urus is the Italian automaker’s most important new product since the Countach in 1974, and according to Alessandro Farmeschi, the COO of Lamborghini North America, it’ll double the company’s production when it goes on sale next year.

When that bomb drops, the Huracán Performante will no longer be the Lambo of the moment. Its 15 minutes will be up. Hell, that game clock is already ticking. But until then, let’s enjoy the Performante for what it is: Lamborghini’s best sports car ever. It’s a masterpiece—a masterpiece with unfortunate timing.

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November 1, 2017 / Comments Off

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2018 McLaren 570S Spider First Drive | A sweet breeze

The McLaren 570S Spider is madness. Not the car itself, which is a cogent convertible design based on the already handsome coupe. What is crazy is that a 562-horsepower machine that hammers to 62 mph in 3.2 seconds is only considered a sort-of, kind-of supercar. The Spider will be McLaren’s volume model in its lowest-priced, lowest-tier Sports Series designation. As such, it is the company’s starter supercar.

Should you have $208,800 in your Venmo account, you won’t give up anything except that fixed roof. There’s no perceivable performance demerit when it comes to this retractable hardtop, as it was developed alongside the regular 570S from the onset. The 0-to-60 time is a non-discernable one-tenth of a second slower, and it still gets to a 204-mph top speed when the roof is up. If you insist on a top-velocity hurtle with wind bathing the cabin, it would only limit you by 8 mph.

So, yes, madness.

It gains only 101 pounds, bringing it to 2,895. One assumes that the real-world difference is negligible. To find out, we flew to Barcelona, enjoying a full day scuttling over gloriously curvy roads in an otherwise remarkably unpopulated part of the world. I recently spent a week with the regular 570S, so my ass was as calibrated as one could hope. Would there be any failings of the Spider over the coupe?

Our test car was outfitted in a new hue, a deep Vega blue, with a dark finish on the roof and body accents. The Spider retains the same roofline as the hardtop and it is instantly recognizable as a variation. McLaren has finally settled into its own design language, with highly identifiable rear tail lamps and those unique 3D “tendon” doors first seen on the 570S coupe and which have now migrated to the 720S. It’s an architectural-leaning language that translates beautifully into a roadster.

With the top down, the Spider gets more attention than the coupe, and perhaps even more than the 720S, which I tested recently in Rome. Perhaps people simply feel drop-tops are especially exotic. Around the summer bustle of Barcelona, kids jumped up and down and attractive women on scooters gave us the thumbs up. There’s worse places to be noticed. The top goes down in a snappy 19 seconds at speeds of up to 25 mph.

We charged away from the nude beaches near the port and headed northwest, toward the elevations of the Castelltallat mountain range. The EU has laid mile upon mile of excellent tarmac throughout this remote countryside, where traffic lights are nearly nonexistent and most of the traffic is of the tractor variety. It’s the kind of place you dream of driving a convertible, sun browning your nose as you scroll through miles of rolling roads. We never saw a police car.

Under light throttle loads, the 570S is a chilled-out supercar. Like its coupe brother, the Spider is easy to live with. The damping is forgiving in every suspension mode. Even mid-corner bumps won’t unsettle the chassis. You can roll over speed bumps without scraping the underside and a resultant heart attack. The 570S is simply not strung as tightly as Secretariat, so it handles real-world roads in a real-car fashion. It flows over ridges in the road without tramlining or any chatter. I could imagine commuting to work in this thing – if I worked as a Hollywood agent.

The driving position is excellent and the interior materials good. Still, it’s the regular car conveniences where McLaren stumbles. The idiosyncratic seat controls, wonky sport/chassis mode controls, and the dodgy and slow infotainment. If you owned the car, you’d get used to them, but they irritate. The Spider does introduce a new problematic wrinkle as the digital screen washes out when exposed to direct sunlight. It’s even worse if you’re wearing polarized sunglasses. You need a navigator to help parse the navigation.

But when it’s time to get supercar serious, the Spider is remarkably prepared. Rigidity comes from the carbon-fiber tub, which McLaren dubs the MonoCell II and weighs only 165 pounds. This means that the Spider doesn’t need any extra body stiffening. Everything below the beltline is exactly the same as the coupe, including dampers and springs. Only the calibrations were tweaked due to the roof mechanism’s greater weight and slightly higher center of gravity.

The car wears either Pirelli P Zero or P Zero Corsa tires, and carbon-ceramic brakes are standard. The carbon stoppers are wondrous in full-attack mode, but can feel dull and resistant before they’re warmed up, especially around town. None of the Sports Series models get the hydraulic chassis treatment that comes with the higher-tier cars like the former 12C or 650S. The 570S isn’t likely to see a track day, however, so the system is not missed. The adaptive dampers and standard anti-roll bars do just fine. It also retains true-to-god hydraulic steering, something that’s highly welcome and that McLaren says isn’t likely to change anytime soon.

And of course, the powertrain is the same. The rear wheels are powered by the 3.8-liter, twin-turbo V8, with the aforementioned 562 hp and 443 pound-feet of torque, working with an Italian-produced seven-speed double-clutch. It lacks the absolute linearity of a naturally-breathing engine such as the one in the Lamborghini Huracan, but it’s as close as a turbo setup gets.

When gorgeous roads appear before us – a mix of sine-wave esses, closing-radius turns pinching around cliff walls and fourth-gear sweepers – the 570S gets down to business. I found that the best setup is manual mode, sport suspension and track powertrain. The middle chassis setting allows enough travel for choppy road surfaces, and the amped-up powertrain mode means the engine responds with gusto, but never feels temperamental or jumpy, like too many modern sports cars. McLaren is unbeatable when it comes to these minute calibrations.

And man, you can just slam through roads, choosing to either maximize rolling speeds and smoothness or grab-it-by-the-scruff and lob it through corners. The car’s balance abets the former driving style; its power-and-brake combo the latter. Either way, it’s a delight.

As for the question of coupe versus convertible, my ass-o-meter couldn’t discern a handling difference, and I’m decently keyed into what’s going on underneath me. In most ways, the top-down Spider simply enhances the experience. The aural extravaganza blossoms behind your head and you get a more visceral sense of speed and the roads – and the occasional whiff of flowers or cow shit, too.

But the very best thing is the 570S’s mortal nature. This is no race car for the road, which you could never hope to exploit. Rather, the McLaren is fit for real-world enthusiasts who drive in the real world. You don’t need an extra 200 horses. In the right setting, you can get 8/10ths from the 570S and still know that your talent will run out before the car does.

In this sense, I like it even better than the 720S. That car has the hydraulic suspension and 710 hp, and it is a handful under full throttle on a legal street. Frankly, it’s a handful on a racetrack, best approached studiously and conscientiously.

In comparison, the 570S is carefree and insouciant. A starter supercar? Hardly. But definitely one geared to taste the wind.

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July 24, 2017 / Comments Off

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2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon First Drive | Don’t fear the Demon

“If you’re not hurt, we’ll be really pissed. If you are hurt, we’ll still be pissed, but not quite as pissed.”

These are the words from Jim Wilder, the vehicle development manager of the 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon, that echo through our head as we slide behind the wheel of the car for the first time. He was warning us about driving beyond our abilities, and keeping the car out of the wall. With 840 horsepower and 770 pound-feet of torque on tap from its supercharged, 6.7-liter V8, the Demon does 0-60 miles per hour in 2.3 seconds, and 0-30 mph in a second flat. If something does go wrong, it’ll happen quickly.

Following that talk, we had our guts sloshed as a passenger in a blurry eighth-mile run, giving us a taste of the G forces (the Demon can pull 1.8 G in a straight line) we’d feel when we got in the driver’s seat for our own pass down the drag strip. We’re already sweating.

It had rained – you could describe it as torrential – the day before. The grassy parking areas surrounding Lucas Oil Raceway were still flooded, but any water on the pavement had evaporated and hung in the air. Combined with the heat, we were sticky and uncomfortable.

In Drag Mode, the Dodge Demon’s air conditioning turns off. Any condensation that it could leave on the track would be a problem, plus we need to reduce parasitic power losses for a faster run. The system is still working, though, the refrigerant diverted to the chiller system cooling the air coming into the engine. There’s still condensation, but the Demon collects it on a catch pad to keep it from ending up on the pavement.

We’re also required to roll the windows up when entering the drag strip. For one thing, it helps keep the smoke out of the cabin during the pre-staging burnout. So, yeah, it’s hot as Hell in the Demon.

We pull through the water box and run through the sequence – which involves holding the “OK” button on the steering wheel usually used to navigate menus, and applying a specific amount of brake pressure before getting on the throttle to initiate the burnout. This gets any crud off the rear tires and heats up the rubber.

There are multiple ways to launch the Demon. We had an instructor sitting in the passenger seat as we pulled up to the beams that trigger the Christmas tree at Lucas Oil Raceway. He walks us through the most complicated of the three he had explained to us just minutes before when we were in the passenger seat. With our left foot on the brake, we pull on both of the shifter paddles on the back of the steering wheel. Next, we gingerly apply throttle with the right foot, bringing the RPMs up to between 1,100 and 1,200, and let go of one paddle. “Off the brake,” the instructor tells us. Overriding every bit of our muscle memory from years of driving that tells us it’s a bad idea, we lift our left foot. Our finger on the remaining shift paddle is what keeps us still.

The man in the passenger seat (whom we can’t see on account of our limited view from the helmet and the tunnel vision that accompanies the adrenaline hit one gets just before launching a satanic, 840-horsepower car down a narrow drag strip) says, “Off the other paddle, and gas.”

We comply, our finger lifting off the second paddle, and our foot rolling hard into the right pedal. In an instant, the engine roars to life, and the weight shifts to the rear wheels as they bite into the sticky pavement. As the Demon pulls our skeleton and the rest of our organs forward, our eyes and stomach seem to float in place for a moment. Eventually, they catch up, and we notice the whine of the 2.7-liter-per-rev supercharger, before the automatic transmission makes its first quick but jarring shift. Third gear arrives in another instant, and the car revs and shifts again with our right foot planted on the floor. We’re still headed dead straight, we realize with relief as the eighth-mile marker approaches, the car shifting into fifth gear. We’re off the gas, and we coast down the drag strip to our exit, chuckling to ourselves.

Once we realize we made it through our first pass intact, we begin to sweat again as our body decides it’s safe to resume normal functions. We pull off the strip, roll down the windows, and head back to the staging area. We’ve got two more runs to go before we have to give up our seat to the next driver.

A second time, we roll up the windows, pull through the water box, spin our tires, and set up our run. A second time, our instructor walks us through the launch procedure. This time, a little more confident, we let go of the second paddle and dig into the accelerator, though not nearly as smoothly as our first launch. The rear wheels hop, but eventually bite and the Demon takes off. We’re glad just to be headed straight as the dizzying G forces build and release, build and release as the car rows through its gears.

This time, we’re already thinking about our next run even before we reach our marker. As we finish our run, we’re telling our instructor about how that launch felt, excited about how well the Demon communicated its grip to us, and how the car was already telling us how to drive it better. Within minutes of hurtling down the drag strip as a terrified passenger before getting behind the wheel ourself – our first time on a proper drag strip, mind you – we’re remembering the articles we had read damning the Dodge Demon as a car unfit for the road, and thinking them silly.

We’re not afraid of the car anymore; perhaps we’ve come under the Demon’s sinister spell. The fearsome beast, proclaimed by Dodge as “not domesticated,” has lulled us into thinking it easily tamed.

More likely, the car is performing just as calmly as intended. Dodge made this car for the drag strip, and engineered it to go fast in a straight line. To take full advantage of the power on offer, the Demon’s TransBrake holds the upgraded transmission’s output shaft to send more torque to the rear wheels at launch. In Drag Mode, the suspension is tuned to shift more weight to the rear tires. Those tires are a set of grippy Nitto 315/40ZR18 drag radials created specifically for this car, and Dodge claims they provide 40-percent more launch force than the Hellcat tires. In order to survive the strains associated with the added power, the Demon has strengthened connecting rods and pistons, thicker rear half shafts, and improved materials in various components.

We pull through the water box ahead of our final run. We go through the somewhat cumbersome procedure to build brake pressure and spin the wheels, then set up our launch. Our instructor asks us if we want him to talk us through the steps again, or let us just do the paddle/brake/throttle sequence by memory, and we opt for the former. This time, it goes smoothly, and our timing is great. We nail the launch, getting into the throttle quickly without breaking grip on the rear wheels. The Demon surges forward, again leaving our stomach behind, but we’re getting used to the feel of the longitudinal G forces and the roar of the exhaust. Our run isn’t timed, but it certainly feels like the fastest of the three. Our instructor reinforces this feeling, telling us we’ve got the hang of the thing. We are officially partners with the Demon.

We coast toward the exit of the drag strip, sweaty and laughing. We roll down the windows and soak in the grumble of the exhaust, the smell of tire smoke lingering in the humid breeze as others take their turns on the track.

We know the Dodge Demon is an unusual street car, something that seems unnecessary. Some want us to think it’s dangerous, even. Truth be told, our thinking changed dramatically last week at Lucas Oil Raceway. Granted, we were driving this car in a controlled environment, but we’ve driven cars that are much more unruly and potentially deadly when one puts their foot to the floor. Despite our fears as we sat inside the Demon for the first time, we didn’t even experience a whiff of real danger. Without prior drag experience, we got behind the wheel of an absolute monster of a car, and came away completely intact, slightly smarter, slightly more experienced, and significantly happier than before.

And while it’s potentially dangerous any time you put a human behind the wheel of a powerful car, Dodge has built something (and engineered it meticulously) to allow a small set of people who are passionate about a strange, standout vehicle to own something that will give them a certain type of performance – specifically straight-line performance – in a relatively safe factory vehicle. And with the Demon, Dodge has probably created a piece of automotive history. That’s isn’t just great for the automaker, it’s a wonderful, exclusive experience for the few thousand passionate drivers who realize there’s little to fear.

July 19, 2017 / Comments Off

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2018 Lamborghini Huracan Performante First Drive | The Banshee of Sant’Agata

Lamborghini didn’t need to build the Huracán Performante. The folks in Sant’Agata could have just rolled out another special-edition Huracán – Superleggera, Tricolore, probably even Mostacholi – and sold every one. Instead, they gave the junior Lamborghini a trick active aerodynamics system and updated everything enabled by new levels of downforce and more grip from the latest-generation of tires. And then just to prove it’s not messing around, Lamborghini went out and set at new production-car Nürburgring Lap Record.

The Huracán Performante is a statement. This is Lamborghini’s way of saying that its future will not just be high-tech, but the kind that brings world-class performance. And it will be loud. Very loud.

Sound is the most defining characteristic of this car. In the era of turbocharging, everything else is too quiet. Quiet is not a problem in the Performante. In track-ready Corsa mode (one of three settings), the exhaust drowns out everything, even your internal monologue. And it’s not just loud, it sounds like an honest-to-god racecar. Making a V10 sound not just decent, but back-of-the-neck-hair thrilling, would have been enough.

But as we’ve hinted, there’s more to the Huracán Performante. So how did we get here? Lamborghini rolled out the Performante title to define all-encompassing performance. So the all-wheel-drive system stays, the engine gets tweaked, some weight goes out, and Aerodinamica Lamborghini Attiva (ALA, or Lamborghini Active Aerodynamics) comes in. Fun fact: Ala means “wing” in Italian.

We’ve covered most of the details in earlier posts, but to quickly review: ALA uses internal flaps at the front splitter and on the rear wing to alter airflow, either running for maximum downforce or creating a stall effect that lowers drag. At the rear, the system channels air through the wing struts, and using each side independently aids the handling. The increased downforce, plus sticky new Pirelli P Zero Corsa tires, necessitated a retuning of the suspension. Through new springs and anti-roll bars, vertical stiffness is up 10 percent, and roll stiffness increases 15 points.

The engine gets a new intake and exhaust, plus titanium intake valves that allow more lift. The improved breathing is good for 630 horsepower, 28 more than before, with 443 pound-feet of torque. And to tie it all together, the integrated chassis control system (Lamborghini calls it ANIMA) was recalibrated.

The revised aerodynamics also come with new front and rear bodywork. It’s most prominent at the rear, where the high-mounted exhaust underlines the FIA GT3 vibe of this car. Inside, it’s the now familiar hexagon-and-jet-fighter theme of the Huracán, only now with overt callouts to the Forged Composite (Lambo’s take on compression-molded carbon fiber) HVAC vents. It’s a bit conspicuous, but if you get to a seated position in a Huracán without realizing that already, you’re missing the point.

So we have a lineup of day-glo Performantes, sporting wings reminiscent of the Countach, lined up in pit row at the Autodromo Enzo i Dino Ferrari in Imola, Italy. Imola is one of motorsport’s most sacred temples, and not just because of the tragedy that took Aryton Senna’s life. It’s an old-school track, the kind where every second of a fast lap is on the edge and the walls seem far too close.

The Huracán, prior to the Performante, was not an ideal modern supercar. At least not to this writer. It does all the right things but with less character than you’d expect from an Italian wedge-car. And it always has understeer at the ready. The Performante, however, is an entirely different Huracán.

First off, ALA works. You can feel it in the way the car jukes right and left until you realize you can put in less steering. But also because the understeer is gone in the Huracán. It’s tenacious with its grip, but also balanced. Much of this is also due, no doubt, to the tires. But the higher limits of the Performante also come with more engagement at every speed. They took the Huracán and added back the character it needed all along.

Which brings us back to the noise, and the magic that is a naturally aspirated engine. Throttle response is instant in the Performante, and the car reaches the 8,500-rpm redline so fast that cracking off the next gear with the paddle shifter makes the seven-speed dual clutch buck with displeasure. Time the shift better, and things go smoother. The same cannot be said for the suspension, which feels racecar-stiff when clipping curbs through Imola’s numerous chicanes. On the street in the softer Strada and Sport modes (which disable ALA, by the way, lest you juke into a median divider), the ride is softer, even downright livable.

Set the Nürburgring numbers aside. The outright speed of a seasoned pro does not necessarily correlate to how a car feels. But the Performante feel special. It communicates its speed to the driver, and moves in predictable ways that can take you from, “Oh my god Imola is terrifying,” to, “Oh my god I just grabbed sixth gear through the sweeping left at the start/finish line and kept the throttle pegged,” in a handful of laps.

After that, things got pretty emotional. Imola is, after all, a special place. But the Huracán Performante is a special car. It’s easily the best car Lamborghini has ever made, and it also happens to be the fastest. Plenty of cars are fast. The Huracán Performante is faster, and has more character.

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July 12, 2017 / Comments Off

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Living up to its name | 2018 Ferrari 812 Superfast First Drive

What’s in a name? In the case of the Ferrari 812 Superfast, a numerical reference to its 800-(metric) horsepower, 12-cylinder engine and a not-so-subtle hint at its capability for extreme rates of travel. Only Ferrari, notorious for joyously naming its flagship “LaFerrari,” could get away with the moniker. But once you get past the super-obvious nomenclature, it becomes hard to argue with this on-the-nose model name.

If you’re lucky enough to have sampled the standard F12 and one of the 799 F12 TDFs offered to Ferrari’s most loyal clients, you’ve got a pretty good idea of the 812 Superfast’s personality, which involves a blend of the TDF’s edginess and the F12’s comfort and usability. Even within the rarified world of supercars, the 812’s athleticism is impressive despite its veil of approachability. More power, to the tune of 789 horsepower (versus the TDF’s 769) combined with weight loss of 132 pounds make it the highest-performance standard production model Ferrari in history. (For reference, the TDF trims an even more impressive 242 pounds, ditching niceties like sound insulation.) Along with mechanical and aerodynamic improvements, the elevated power-to-weight ratio enables it to hit 60 mph in 2.8 seconds and reach a top speed of 211 mph.

2018 Ferrari 812 Superfast

The main attraction is, of course, the 6.5-liter V12, which boasts 75 percent new parts and undergoes a series of mods to raise its output while (thankfully) retaining its naturally aspirated soul. A stroked version of the F12’s 6.3-liter mill, the V12 features new pistons, new con-rods, a reinforced crankcase, and a trick new direct-fuel-injection system that runs at a staggering 5,076 psi. The system is capable of changing the shape of fuel droplets as they’re injected into the combustion chamber, adjusting for around-town drivability or balls-to-the-wall performance. A revised air intake system incorporates a new plenum and bigger air inlet with wider throttle valves for better breathing. Silver lining: CO2 emissions have been reduced thanks to the new injection system and reduced friction from new 5W50 engine oil.

Each of the seven-speed dual-clutch transmission’s gears has been shortened, which has the virtual effect of producing an extra 50 horsepower – as if the mighty V12 was wanting for oomph. Upshifts can now happen 30 percent quicker, and the engine’s ability to rev-match for downshifts occurs 40 percent faster. Aiding the 812’s performance are revised aerodynamic profiles via a panoply of vents, ducts, vortex generators, and diffusers. With the goal of reducing drag while maintaining downforce, airflow is manipulated via passive elements at the front diffusers and three active flaps at the rear.

The powertrain tweaks seem tiny compared to the big news in the chassis department: Ferrari’s first use of electric steering (EPS). What took so long in an era when performance brands like Porsche are now several generations into their EPS technology? Ferrari says it considered the tech for the 488 GTB, but it wasn’t dynamically satisfying enough to warrant production. With so many systems digitally interfacing in the 812 – from traction/stability control and magnetorheological dampers to the electronic differential – Ferrari says it was finally time for the steering to became part of that dialogue. “The steering system now has a seat at the vehicle dynamics table,” says lead Ferrari test driver Raffaele de Simone, which begs the inevitable question: Is the steering feel good enough to warrant the change? More on that later.

2018 Ferrari 812 Superfast

Unlike Ferrari’s famously purposeful mid-engine cockpits, the cabin of the front-engine 812 Superfast feels spacious and fairly airy, with good forward visibility. Inherited from the GTC4 Lusso is the so-called twin-cockpit feature, which adds an 8.8-inch touchscreen above the glove box displaying navigation, drive mode setting or instrumentation info. The system works well enough and can easily be switched off, leaving a dark panel surface that blends well with the leather-lined interior. But the hot seat is the one behind the prancing horse-clad steering wheel.

The central focus from the driver seat is a large yellow tachometer that sits dead ahead. The dial is a reassuring reminder of Ferrari’s performance intentions despite the 812’s distinct grand-touring elements – the front-engine configuration, the surprisingly roomy seats, and the refined infotainment system inherited from the Lusso that includes twin hi-resolution five-inch screens.

Bring the massive V12 to life via the steering wheel-mounted start button, and the 812 fires with a deliciously loud thrum. The titanium exhaust system is slightly quieter at lower rpms in Sport mode due to sound regulations, but in the Race setting the system opens up to the F12’s more raucous volume levels. Set the manettino to Sport, and the engine’s tremendously flexible powerband makes it easy to lope around town with minimal gearshifts. There’s incredible pull from low rpms thanks to the engine’s Mack Truck-like displacement and continuously variable intake, and with 80 percent of torque available from 3,500 rpm the run to max revs at 8,900 rpm is pin-you-to-your-seat giggle inducing.

2018 Ferrari 812 Superfast

Up the ante by clicking the manettino to Race, and you’ll still get enough electronic intervention to keep you from kicking the tail out; I endured one well-mannered lap at Ferrari’s Fiorano test track before switching to the CT off setting, which enables tail-happy corner sliding with a safety net of stability control. This is hero mode at its finest: With so much power so easily accessed at your right foot, flawlessly executed power slides makes you feel like a certified drift master. The task requires more daring than ever because the 812’s four-wheel steering system adds stability at higher speeds; the act feels even riskier due to wider front tires that dig in more firmly, having grown from 255 mm to 275 mm (the rears remain at 315 mm).

While the 812’s power feels eminently manageable thanks to the naturally aspirated engine’s intuitive throttle response, it isn’t until ESC is switched off that the truly beastly nature of the car emerges. In what we’ll call Man-Up Mode, the 812’s personality shifts; the V12 responds without the politeness of electronic intervention, easily charging the vehicle ahead and even more easily sliding the tail out. More mechanical grip requires higher corner speeds to break the Pirellis’ grip loose; when that happens, quick countersteer is in order to keep the front end in tandem with the rear. Incidentally, Ferrari engineers say that during this state of oversteer, the electronic steering system is designed to slacken the steering in one direction, just like when the tires break loose with a hydraulic setup. The real-life feeling is appropriately realistic. Though the electronic steering feels slightly heavier and incrementally less lucid and transparent than the outgoing setup, the feedback is communicative enough not to raise significant red flags about its artificiality. There is, most certainly, a difference between old and new, but the difference is not strong enough to warrant storming the castles of technology, especially when they indeed have finally become a part of the vehicle’s ever-complicated electronics systems.

2018 Ferrari 812 Superfast

Having explored the 812’s limits on the track, the road becomes an appropriate place to dial back the drama and explore the grand-touring side of the car’s personality. That said, the V12 makes it all but impossible to switch on the Bose-powered stereo system, which is just as well. The mellifluous internal-combustion song is all but impossible to ignore, as is the addictive feeling of thrust as it sweeps the tachometer up toward its 8,900-rpm redline. Leave the gearbox in automatic, and shifts are remarkably smooth and well-timed. Hit a twisty road and click the manettino to Race, and the shift strategy is just as good as you’ll find on Porsche’s near-perfect PDK system, holding the revs in just the right range for strong-spirited driving. When switched to manual mode, the shifts get a tad less smooth, but the feeling of control is unparalleled; there’s virtually no lag between tactile input and cog swap, and a new feature enables the driver to hold down the left paddle during hard braking, which triggers multiple shotgun-quick downshifts. Neat.

In fact, “neat” just might be the operative word when piloting the 812 on twisty roads; despite its relatively lengthy 107-inch wheelbase and longish snout, the Ferrari manages to tackle switchbacks with zero drama. Ride quality is controlled and firm but never busy, and the so-called Bumpy Road setting offers a bit more compliance over the potholed bits. Even in the relatively restrictive Race mode, power is routed from the electronic differential to the road with seamless ease; no tire slip, no problem. And within the cabin, the mood is modulated because harnessing the engine’s immense power is far less stressful than you might expect, thanks to the intuitive feedback from the throttle, brakes, and steering.

If you could sum up the predominant mood following a day of driving the Ferrari 812 Superfast, it just might be a feeling of supreme satisfaction. With an endlessly smooth and powerful V12 under the hood, an accommodating cabin, and surprisingly agility, the 812 manages to achieve superlatives across a seemingly improbable spread of the performance/comfort scatter plot: It’s effortlessly quick, impressively athletic, and surprisingly comfortable. The only elements that seem to open themselves to criticism are abundance of slats and vents that break up the F12’s otherwise sculptural shape, and a bit more plastic trim on the interior than befits a $308,000 car. Apart from those quibbles, there really isn’t anything on the Ferrari 812 that isn’t super.

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June 23, 2017 / Comments Off

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Fast doesn’t begin to describe it | 2017 Bugatti Chiron First Drive

Long after the heat of the moment, I pull off the highway in rural Portugal and glance at the Bugatti Chiron’s center console. As the engine cools and the carbon silicon carbide brake rotors start to dissipate heat, the onboard computer’s telemetry reveals some staggering figures: A peak speed of 377 km/h (do the math, and that’s 234 mph), with the quad-turbocharged W16 squeezing a max of 1,466 horsepower at 6,691 rpm.

Did I just drive a car or fly a plane?

The mind-boggling brain shuffle of Bugatti’s latest land rocket cannot be understated, even when placed in context against the now-defunct Veyron. In ultimate Super Sport trim, the Veyron produced a stunning 1,200 (metric) horsepower. The Chiron’s leap to 1,500 ponies required considerable development, testing, and re-engineering. That exhaustive process saw significant challenges, even late in the game. Consider the high-speed testing incident in South Africa: despite extensive test-bench work, real-world driving revealed that the immense exhaust heat was melting the rear bumper and nearly igniting the car. The solution, it turns out, was to add a duct so airflow from the underbody could channel through and diffuse the heat. Hashtag: #1500HorsepowerProblems.

Bugatti Chiron

For the 500 wealthy souls who will take delivery, the $2,998,000 Chiron is most certainly an emotional purchase. But it’s backed by a battery of left-brain thinking aimed at making it a quicker, smoother, more involving car than its famously controversial predecessor. For starters, only five percent of the engine’s parts are retained from the Veyron, the bulk of the new parts getting strengthened, lightened, and re-engineered to better cope with the thermal demands of the heightened output. The four turbochargers are 68 percent larger and now work sequentially so the first set can facilitate a torque plateau between 2,000 and 4,000 rpm. The larger, second set of turbos extend the flat line to 6,600 rpm. The seven-speed gearbox manufactured by Ricardo, which is essentially the only dry-sump dual-clutch on the production car market, has been strengthened and reinforced to withstand the engine’s thumping 1,180 pound-feet of torque. The immense drivetrain is housed by a carbon-fiber chassis by Dallara that requires 1,500 hours to build.

The Chiron also gains an adaptive chassis that uses five drive modes to set ride height, steering effort, damping, and power distribution. New 20- and 21-inch wheels are not only lighter, they run up to 50 percent cooler thanks to reworked brake caliper ventilation. The new hoops promise considerably longer wear than the Veyron’s famously insatiable appetite for front tires (which ran $20,000 a pair unless you were changing them for the fourth time, in which case you’d be set back an additional $34,500 for two replacement wheels).

Bugatti Chiron

From the driver’s seat, the initial impression is entirely digestible: A press of the blue, steering-wheel-mounted Engine button summons all sixteen cylinders and the sound, at least within the cabin, is not as daunting as you might expect. Those on the outside, however, are hit by a deep, hearty bellow from the Chiron’s six exhaust pipes. Compared to the Veyron, this cockpit has been cleaned up and streamlined, trading numerous analog gauges on the instrument cluster for one big speedometer needle that sweeps all the way to 300 mph (or 500 km/h, depending on the country it’s built for). Three configurable TFTs offer additional information, including a tachometer, a trip computer, and vehicle settings.

Low-speed driving reveals that, well, low-speed driving is all but impossible. That’s not because the Chiron isn’t tractable or well behaved – it’s actually remarkably controllable and docile at legal speeds. Rather, when you graze the tip of the turbocharger’s immense boost, you get an irresistible taste of that aircraft-like power. The torque piles on as the first set of turbos spool, tempting you to keep burying the pedal as it tugs your head closer to the headrest. The Chiron’s interior is an elegantly understated place where the only distraction from the flawless leather is the subtle glint of anodized aluminum, but those finely modulated details fly out the window as the speed accumulates, diverting your attention towards the rapidly approaching road ahead.

Bugatti Chiron

The transmission downshifts somewhat jerkily at low speeds (which Bugatti Chief Test Driver Loris Bicocci attributes to my tester’s pre-production status), but above parking-lot speeds the cog swaps are smooth and quite quick, especially considering the heft of the gearbox’s moving parts and the massive amounts of torque they must handle. The Chiron delivers palpably more responsiveness and visceral reward compared to the Veyron, and in Handling mode it tackles corners with a taut, glued-down sense of focus. The trick in the bends is to resist the temptation to get back into the throttle too early, which is exactly the same principle you were taught when learning to drive shifter karts (except this time, you’re playing with thermonuclear levels of power). The ante is further upped because, at least according to Bugatti brass, the Chiron is capable of drifting in Handling mode. Yikes.

Onto straighter sections of road, the Chiron charges forward motivated by what feels like an endlessly escalating supply of power. Even in manual mode, the transmission will automatically upshift at redline. Considering the tachometer is buried relatively out of sight, it’s certainly a good thing to avoid bouncing this very expensive engine off the rev limiter. Perhaps the only things more impressive than the face-flattening acceleration (which can launch the car to 62 mph in under 2.5 seconds and onto a top speed of 261 mph) are the brakes. Just lifting off the gas at high speeds will turn the rear spoiler into an airbrake, flapping it so high in the air that it completely blocks the view out of the rear window. Stabbing the left pedal triggers up to 2 Gs of decelerative force, capable of bringing the Chiron to a full and complete stop from 124 mph in a mere 410 feet.

Bugatti Chiron

And then there’s that speed run, the shockingly brief but immensely intense burst of acceleration that sends my steed hurtling towards the horizon on a seemingly unstoppable tear. Thanks to the automatically lowered ride height and aggressive downforce, the car stays firmly planted on the road. I (predictably) run out of room all too soon and have to punch the brakes, returning to sane(r) speeds. But when I later learn of the 377 km/h speed, the figure becomes seared into my brain. The Chiron was still pulling hard at that speed, suggesting it has far greater reserves than the published top speed of 420 km/h (or 261 mph) – and in fact, it does. As Bugatti President Wolfgang Dürheimer emphasizes, the car is electronically limited to 420 km/h to save room for a faster variant that will leave this landmark in the dust, which will turn yet another groundbreaker into a late, great legend.

Look out for the future; it comes quicker than you think.

Bugatti Chiron

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March 27, 2017 / Comments Off

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Key Specs

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Does 730ps-per-tonne sound good to you? Keep reading…

Introducing the Brabham BT62

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What do you think of the Brabham BT62? Would you buy one? If not – what would you have instead?

Key SpecsEngine: 4.0-liter twin-turbochanged V8Transmission: nine-speed automatic; front, center and rear locking differentialsHorsepower: 416; 577 horsepowerTorque: 450; 627 lb-ftPrice: TBA

Key Specs
Engine: 4.0-liter twin-turbochanged V8
Transmission: nine-speed automatic; front, center and rear locking differentials
Horsepower: 416; 577 horsepower
Torque: 450; 627 lb-ft
Price: TBA