J U N E 2 0 18

ASTONISHING
T H E N E W A S TO N M A R T I N VA N TAG E

YELLOW BIRD
E XCLUSIVE DRIVE OF THE REBORN RUF C TR

FERR ARI P ORTOFINO | MCL AREN SENNA

 THE ALL- NE W 2019

SIT AT THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE.

Designed around you, the sophisticated surfaces and layout of the all-new QX 50’s well-appointed cabin
create an empowering environment for every drive. Experience enhanced artistic comfort with available premium
semi-aniline leather, tailored stitching, and ultra-suede accents.

®2018 INFINITI.
 CONTENTS ROA D & TRACK | VO L . 69, NO. 9 | J UN E 20 1 8

T H E F E AT U R E S

24 34
T HE F I R S T D R I VE | B Y CH R I S CH I LTON HIS T O R Y | B Y A . J. B A IME

ASTON MARTIN VANTAGE THE REVS INSTITUTE

More than swooping lines, English charm, and V-8 gruff, Collector Miles Collier brings academic rigor
Aston’s latest sports car is a genuine rival to the Porsche 911. to the preservation of automotive history.

46 56
T HE N & NOW | B Y S AM SM I TH T HE A NA LY SIS | B Y JAC K B A RUT H

YELLOW BIRD REHATCHED A GILDED AGE

Three decades after R&T proclaimed the Ruf CTR the world’s We indulge in a Mercedes-Benz S-class, a Lexus LS, and a
fastest car, we return to Germany to drive its successor. Lincoln Navigator to discern what “luxury car” means today.

R OA DA N D T R AC K . C O M 3
 S TA N DA R D E Q U I P M E N T

GO
THE MAGICAL MCLAREN SENNA ........................ 6

COLUMNS
FEEDBACK Never too much Porsche ............................. 15
EDITOR’S LETTER Midcycle refresh .......................... 16
SMITHOLOGY On Tesla and internal combustion........ 20
BOB LUTZ The price is right .......................................... 96

6
DRIVES
2018 FERRARI PORTOFINO.................................. 70
2018 TOYOTA CAMRY ............................................. 74

THE BOOT
THE PASSION The artwork of Unique & Limited ......... 81
DRIVER’S ED Sympathy for old cars ............................. 90
GEAR SELECTION Retro timepieces .......................... 94

ON THE COVER
70 2019 ASTON MARTIN VANTAGE
....................................................... photograph by Dean Smith

4 JUNE 2018
PERFORMANCE
ART
The true measure of a car’s performance is how fast it
translates the desires of the driver into the actions of
the vehicle. That’s why when we designed the NSX,
aerodynamics weren’t an afterthought, but a starting point.

Every crease, contour, and line in the NSX connects airflow

from front to back for an incredibly stable platform, keeping
the driver more connected to the road.

When you build around the driver’s desire and make sure
every innovation is an improvement in performance,
that’s the spirit of Precision Crafted Performance.

Check out the NSX at your local Acura dealer,

or build your own at nsx.acura.com/build.

©2018 Acura. Acura, NSX, and the stylized “A” logo are registered trademarks of Honda Motor Co., Ltd.
WILD THING
The McLaren Senna is a caricature of the
uncompromising sports car. It makes 789 hp,
costs almost $1 million, and is named after not one
but two of the most remarkable racers of all time.
Then there’s the bodywork.
Yet the guy responsible for those extreme looks,
design director Rob Melville, conveys a diferent
message: Cars like this are all about compromise.
“Design is about solving problems,” he says.
“We have to find compromises that answer the
problems in a way that suits a product’s mission.”
Melville took us through the crucial
balancing acts that determined how this
street-legal racer looks and what it can do.

Engineers called for radiators to be mounted extremely

high behind the doors to suiciently cool the twin-turbo
4.0-liter V-8. Their height “was killing me, from an aesthetic
standpoint,” Melville says. Solution: Push down the front
fenders, to lower airlow. That made it possible to reduce
the height of the rear radiators by about three inches.

P H O T O G R A P H Y B Y D E A N S M I T H | N I K O N D 8 5 0 , 2 4 –7 0 M M f/ 2 . 8 L E N S @ 5 0 M M , I S O 1 0 0 , 1 / 1 5 S E C @ f/ 1 1 . 0

6 JUNE 2018
 A R R E S T ING R E S IS TA NCE
What generates downforce can also increase drag. The Senna’s tail works overtime to minimize
that trade-off. As on other McLarens, its wing adjusts on the ly, but here the support pylons
attach from above, freeing more surface area on the underside airfoil. That effectively yields the
downforce of an even larger wing, without the added drag. The setup almost worked too well in
testing.“The wing was so powerful, it was delaminating,” Melville says.
N I K O N D 8 5 0 , 2 4 –7 0 M M f/ 2 . 8 L E N S @ 3 2 M M , I S O 1 0 0 , 1 /4 S E C @ f/ 1 1 . 0

8 JUNE 2018
 SIMPLIFY AND ADD . . . FUNCTION
Perhaps the biggest compromise, from a design perspective, is the lack of visual
simplicity that has characterized McLarens since the F1.“The Senna is visually complex,
but it’s as simple as it can be to achieve its performance result,” Melville says. That result
is hard to argue with: nearly 1800 pounds of downforce in a street-legal car.
N I K O N D 8 5 0 , 2 4 –7 0 M M f/ 2 . 8 L E N S @ 3 8 M M , I S O 1 0 0 , 1 / 8 S E C @ f/ 1 1 . 0

10 JUNE 2018
R OA DA N D T R AC K . C O M 11
 M A X IMUM AT TACK
For those bored by talk of thoughtful compromise, McLaren will build 75 track-only Senna GTRs.
“The beauty of the GTR was no legal requirements . . . and we didn’t have to stick to [racing series] rules,”
Melville says. So, a massive undertray mocks pedestrian protection regulations but helps produce some
2200 pounds of downforce, and there’s enough grunt, 814 hp, to blow away most any GT race car.
“It says, I’ve come here to win,” Melville enthuses.

MCL AREN AUTOMOTIVE

12 JUNE 2018
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PROGRESSIVE.COM 1-800-PROGRESSIVE
 Feedback
PORSCHES, DEMONS, AND STINGERS.

DEAR R&T,
KUDOS FOR THE OUTSTANDING ARTICLES ABOUT THE PORSCHE 911 GT2
RS [“THE UNBEAST”], DON GARLITS [“BIG DADDY AND THE DEMON”],
AND KEVIN JEANNETTE [“GERMERICAN PICKERS”]. AFTER READING
EVERY SINGLE WORD ABOUT THE 911 GT2 RS, TIME AND AGAIN, LIKE A
TEENAGER WHO JUST FOUND HIS DAD’S PLAYBOY, I WAS READY TO SELL
EVERYTHING TO BE ABLE TO SAY I OWN ONE OF THOSE GUIDED MISSILES.
ED ZAHRA, DALLAS, TEXAS

PORSCHES FOR THE SOUL
I’m sitting here in North Carolina, sick
with some sort of alien flu, and all I’ve
got is the February issue with you guys
blabbing about Porsches. Best day ever.
JEFFREY HORTON
GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA
You devoted 10 of your 88 pages to the
Porsche 911 GT2 RS, an automobile
priced at $294,250. Then, to add insult
to injury, the very next article devotes
four pages to the 911 RSR [“Forward
Thinking”], yet another Porsche that
no one will ever own. Come on, guys,
why not stick to coverage of everyday
cars that 99 percent of your readers
will own?
no roped-of sections, no guards,
no huge transporters. Don and crew
ripped the motor down in a controlled
frenzy, laying parts on the ground
all around them. We stood in awe as,
almost without a word, Don rebuilt the
Hemi in 40 minutes to make it back
for the finals. And then he smoked
the competition.
STAN BALDWIN
PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA
Come on, guys! I loved the article
on one of my automotive heroes,
“Big Daddy” Don Garlits, but couldn’t
find where you revealed the times he
ran with the Dodge Demon.
ROGER WILLIS
track conditions prevented him
from closing in on a 10-second pass.
The tire smoke was epic, though.
TAKE YOUR TIME
Lately I have been finding myself
lingering over the Go section. The
visuals are consistently centerfold
material. However, the February
issue has messed me up completely.
Forget Go (well, no, don’t do that),
the Standard Equipment [page 4]
photographs more than captured
my interest! That shot of the tires
with the spiderweb, I could hang
that on my wall.
STEVE FAIRBAIRN
VIA EMAIL

JIM HILDEBRAND MEADVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA

SPRING HILL, FLORIDA
I feel better about the state of the world
knowing there are Porsche 911 GT2 RSs
and RSRs running around.
THOMAS DAVIS
STAUNTON, VIRGINIA
We’re right there with you, Thomas.
BIG FANS OF “BIG DADDY”
In the Sixties, we drove, towed, or
Don ripped of impressive runs after
just a few trips down the strip, but
A REAL STINGER
Kia surprised me with the new
Stinger GT—an attractive sport sedan
with a twin-turbocharged engine,
a 4.6-second 0-to-60-mph time,
and a price starting at just $39,250
[“Fashionably Late”]. This is the car
I expected from Nissan, with a
Maxima badge.
VITALIY VASILYUK
NORTH BEND, OREGON

hauled any vehicle we got our hands

on to Fremont Drag Strip, just across There were true sport sedans long
San Francisco Bay. We were there one before the Mercedes-Benz 190E-16V
weekend when Don Garlits brought his in your article. In 1962, my dad let my
Swamp Rat to rail the West Coast. brother and me drive his Jaguar Mark 2
Don won his semifinal run but blew 3.8 from Philadelphia to Miami. It had
the motor. The pits were poorly paved: the engine from the larger Mark IX in a

R OA DA N D T R AC K . C O M 15
 EDITOR’S LETTER | KIM WOLFKILL Feedback C O N T.

compact body and a four-speed manual

with Laycock de Normanville electric
overdrive. Great trip, until we had a flat
and discovered the copper hammer to
remove the knockof hub from the wire
wheel was not in the trunk.
ROBERT BROSELOW
SOUTHLAND, TEXAS

ELDOM A WEEK GOES BY that an automaker isn’t introducing its GENUINE R-TICLE

S take on new, diferent, or better. Sometimes it’s a clean-sheet

redesign of an aging model that’s lost its way; other times, it
may be a subtle refresh of an existing favorite. Or, in an efort
While looking for a new car in 2001,
I drove all the era’s “hot compacts,”
including the Toyota Celica, Subaru
to capture a previously untapped slice of the market, it could be Impreza, Mitsubishi Eclipse, and
a revolutionary new “segment buster” guaranteed to take the world by storm. Volkswagen Golf GTI. By far and away,
Some work, some don’t, but they all keep us wondering what’s next. the Acura Integra Type R was the most
The same happens in the media business, as brands endeavor to strike exciting and fun to drive. The firm
a balance between pleasing existing customers and attracting new ones; suspension, precise shifter, beautiful
providing a safe haven for the faithful while remaining relevant in an ever- lines, wonderful driving position—and
shifting landscape. To that end, this issue introduces what in automotive that fabulous, free-revving engine
jargon would be called a “midcycle refresh”—a design update that injects with gobs of power topped it all of.
additional pop into Road & Track’s editorial mix. Same great ingredients, Enjoy your yellow Type R, Sam. It’s
crisp new packaging, a hint more flavor. worth the noodles.
Speaking of staying relevant, this month’s cover story, “Breaking Free,” ERIC SELTZER
starting on page 24, illustrates how a clean-sheet redesign can vault an aging SPARKS, NEVADA

star back into the spotlight. While far from over the hill, the Aston Martin
Vantage has no doubt been
THIS ISSUE INTRODUCES ripe for an overhaul, and as
contributing editor Chris Chilton
WHAT IN AUTOMOTIVE discovered, Gaydon’s thoroughly
reworked sports car delivers a
JARGON WOULD BE CALLED driving experience as striking as
A “MIDCYCLE REFRESH.” its bold looks.
At the opposite end of the
automotive spectrum, contributing editor A. J. Baime discovers the magic
DON’T TOUCH
Thank you, Bob Lutz, for putting into
words my feelings about touchscreen
displays in cars. This column confirms
I’m not the only one who believes that
auto manufacturers’ obsession with
infotainment screens has gone too far.
DON SMITH
NEPEAN, ONTARIO

of the Revs Institute, the cornerstone of one man’s mission to encourage the
continued study, understanding, and appreciation of the automobile. In his THE CORE OF INDIANAPOLIS
feature, “Preservation Hall” (page 34), Baime visits with Revs founder Miles As a geologist, IndyCar fan, and
Collier, who guides him around his astounding facility, sharing insights on why someone who has ridden a bicycle 80
the automobile will always matter. laps around the Indianapolis Motor
Ever adept at straddling past and present, editor-at-large Sam Smith Speedway, I found your story on the
revisits our friends at Ruf to drive a pair of special “Birds.” His latest trip to track core sample [“Ripple Efect”]
Pfafenhausen, “Birds of a Feather” (page 46), puts him behind the wheel of fascinating. I can attest to the bumps on
not only Alois Ruf’s latest prototype CTR, but also its legendary inspiration, the track. While smooth compared with
the 1987 CTR “Yellow Bird.” Hanging out at Ruf’s shop, Sam wrenches on the public roads, the track is bumpy
P H OTO G R A P H BY DW B U R N E TT

first CTR sold to a customer and catches up with the designer of the newest in places you would not expect.
car, none other than Freeman Thomas, all while getting the lowdown on what JONATHAN WALTERS
makes both CTRs so extraordinary. CINCINNATI, OHIO

Whether printed page or crafted steel, established brands must continually

adapt to the times. The strongest endure and thrive. They never lose sight of
the history on which they’re built yet continue to evolve in the face of change.
It’s by no means a novel concept, but a friendly reminder for all at Road &
Track to never stop pushing. ■
Email us at letters@roadandtrack.com. Include your
full name, city, state, and daytime telephone number
for verification. We unfortunately cannot answer every
inquiry, and we reserve the right to edit letters.Editorial
contributions are considered only if guaranteed exclusive.
Materials are subject to Road & Track standard terms,
and the vendor must retain a copy. Photographs should
be released for publication by the source. Road & Track
is not responsible for unsolicited materials.

16 JUNE 2018
 Our most adventurous
Outback yet.
®

The 2018 Subaru Outback. It’s loaded with versatility for those who love
to chase adventure. Fold-away roof cross bars. A 60/40-split folding rear seat.
And standard Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive + 32 mpg.*
Love. It’s what makes a Subaru, a Subaru.

Outback. Well-equipped at $25,895.†

Subaru and Outback are registered trademarks. *EPA-estimated highway fuel economy for 2018 Subaru Outback 2.5i models. Actual mileage may vary. †MSRP excludes destination and delivery charges,
tax, title, and registration fees. Retailer sets actual price. Certain equipment may be required in specific states, which can modify your MSRP. See your retailer for details. 2018 Subaru Outback 2.5i Limited
shown has an MSRP of $34,780. Vehicle shown with available accessories.
 Editorial Staf
Editor-in-Chief KIM WOLFKILL
Design Director MATT TIERNEY Deputy Editor DAVID ZENLEA
Managing Editor MIKE FAZIOLI Senior Editor MATTHEW DE PAULA
Editors at Large PETER EGAN, SAM SMITH Copy Chief REBECCA JONES
Road Test Editor KYLE KINARD Designer ADAM MCGINN
Photographer MARC URBANO Assistant Editor NATHAN PETROELJE

Editorial Director EDDIE ALTERMAN

Contributing Editors A. J. BAIME, JACK BARUTH, CHRIS CHILTON,
JASON H. HARPER, PRESTON LERNER, RICHARD PINTO, MAX PRINCE, MARSHALL PRUETT
Contributing Artists & Photographers TIM BARKER, DW BURNETT, ROBERT KERIAN, EVAN KLEIN, RICHARD PARDON,
JAMEY PRICE, TOM SALT, JOSH SCOTT, DEAN SMITH, ANDREW TRAHAN, BILL WARNER, JEFFREY R. ZWART
Editorial Advisory Board CHIP GANASSI (RACING MOGUL), BOB LUTZ (VIPER CREATOR, EXEC),
SAM POSEY (PAINTER, RACER), BOBBY RAHAL (INDY 500 WINNER, TEAM OWNER)

RoadandTrack.com Staf
Site Director TRAVIS OKULSKI
Deputy Editor BOB SOROKANICH European Editor MÁTÉ PETRÁNY
Web Editor CHRIS PERKINS Snapchat Discover Editor AARON BROWN
Web Producer TYWIN PHAM Assistant Editor, Social Media BRIAN SILVESTRO

Publisher & Chief Revenue Officer FELIX DIFILIPPO

National Advertising Sales Director CAMERON ALBERGO
General Manager, Hearst Men’s Group SAMANTHA IRWIN

NEW YORK The Blend Line

East Coast Automotive Director JOE PENNACCHIO
Assistant PHILIPPA MALLOCH
CHICAGO
Integrated Sales Director RICK BISBEE
Integrated Midwest Manager MARC GORDON
Sales Assistant YVONNE VILLAREAL
DETROIT
Integrated Sales Director MARK FIKANY
Assistant TONI STARRS
LOS ANGELES
Integrated Sales Director ANNE RETHMEYER
Integration Associate MICHELLE NELSON
Assistant BRYAN GOONETILLEKE
SAN FRANCISCO
Smith Media Sales, Inc. WILLIAM G. SMITH
DALLAS
PR 40 Media PATTY RUDOLPH
HEARST DIRECT MEDIA
Sales Manager BRAD GETTELFINGER
Administration
Advertising Services Director REGINA WALL
Executive Creative Director MAURY POSTAL
Production Director TIA DEVLIN
Director, Digital Media Strategy MEAGAN MAGINOT
Senior Manager, Media Strategy & Planning SCOTT TOPEL
Accolades Manager, Media Strategy/Planning Coordinator
REBECCA TAROON
Marketing Solutions
Executive Director, Integrated Marketing DAWN SHEGGEBY
Directors, Integrated Marketing AMANDA LUGINBILL, ERIC BRATTEN
Associate Director, Integrated Marketing MICHAEL TEXIER
Senior Marketing Manager MICHAEL COOPERSMITH
Art Director, Group Marketing ELENA MARTORANO
Integrated Marketing Coordinator RICHARD PANCIOCCO
Director, Digital Marketing KELLY MARTIN
Research Manager PETER DAVIS
Production/Operations
Director CHUCK LODATO
Operations Account Manager HARRY YEE
Premedia Manager ZACHARY SMITH
Circulation
Executive Director, Consumer Marketing WILLIAM CARTER

President, Hearst Autos NICK MATARAZZO

Chief Marketing Officer JILL MEENAGHAN

Published by Hearst Communications, Inc.

A Unit of the Hearst Corporation, 300 W. 57th Street, New York, NY 10019
President & Chief Executive Officer STEVEN R. SWARTZ
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Hearst Magazines Division

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18 JUNE 2018
 SMITHOLOGY | BY SAM SMITH

Questions I tried a Model 3 recently, in L.A. My car was privately

owned, rented for a test. It had a few assembly niggles and
was thus a better representation of real-world Teslas than

Electric some pampered media loaner. An untrimmed door seal, with

TESLAS AND TURNING POINTS.
HE JOKE GOES THAT WE LIVE IN THE FUTURE.
loose rubber flashing near the window. Funky panel gaps. But
the car was still impressive. On a fun-to-drive scale, some-
where between a Civic Si and an old 3-series. I was reminded
of a Sixties Mini, in terms of democratization of a form factor.
And ideas around which others pivot.
So many questions, though, if you’re of a certain bent. Good

T You know, that cliché we trot out for anything

amazing and tech-related—mind-blowing
gifts, seemingly ahead of schedule. The
EVs prompt this stuf, because they work like ordinary cars,
no excuses or caveats. Your brain moves from the singular
product to the situational long tail.
telephone-supercomputer that lives in every- Say, for example, that the gasoline-powered car becomes so
one’s pocket. Or how Google’s self-driving-car arm, Waymo, uncommon that its infrastructure withers. Gas stations grow
recently announced a deal to put up to 20,000 autonomous rare, fuel and insurance exorbitantly priced. Will I live to see
Jaguars on the road by 2020, for public ride-hailing. (I don’t debate over the legality of the human-driven, gas-powered
know what’s more amazing—that goal, or the fact that, in automobile? Will we talk about the internal-combustion
2018, it seems only half insane.) Or even just that recent
moment one evening after dinner, when my cofee grinder
broke. I cracked open my laptop, and two hours later, Ama-
zon Prime had dropped a new one at my door.
That last one thrills me perhaps a little too much. The
world of tomorrow, shipped to you today! Or maybe just
tomorrow’s cofee, when you feel like giving Jef Bezos one
more detail of your private life in exchange for not waiting
another sleep for more teeth-staining bean water. Funny how
the mind can ignore the rational in the face of want.
The novelist Warren Ellis once noted that the future sneaks
up on us, in the fringes of daily life. I like that line. It suggests
keeping a weather eye open for reasons to be stoked, wary, or
both. Like the Tesla Model 3: an afordable electric sedan that
resembles neither doofy novelty nor commuter penalty box,
with real battery range. Discount emotion and brand hype,
and the Tesla resembles the similarly
priced Chevrolet Bolt. But car buyers FUNNY HOW THE MIND CAN IGNORE THE RATIONAL IN THE
rarely discount emotion or hype. The
Model 3 looks like a stylish, adult device. FACE OF WANT. OR THE FUTURE, SNEAKING UP ON YOU.
More than half a million people put down
a deposit to buy one. The Bolt looks like a cartoon beaver that engine and human driving like we talk about guns? (Either
ate too many doughnuts, and it isn’t exactly flying of lots. I’m backed as necessary freedom, by an organization like the
told the Chevy drives well, but to paraphrase Coco Chanel, it’s NRA, or reviled as dangerous social flotsam.) Will people
a lot easier to sell pretty than it is to sell Good Lord, Helen, start electric-motor-swapping old Mustangs and Miatas just
Why Did You Wear That? to keep them alive, the running costs on a combustion car too
The Tesla isn’t perfect, but it’s undeniably a milestone. much to bear?
Assuming, of course, that Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO, can meet One school of thought holds that the automobile as we
demand before another carmaker builds something better. know it will go the way of horses, a leisure item kept in spe-
Also assuming that he can keep his company from collapsing cialized parks. In 2018, most people can’t aford a horse. How
into a steaming pile of unprofit and technical-service bul- rich will you have to be to go fast and make loud noises?
letins. (TSB: a postproduction quality update recommended I first drove a practical electric car almost a decade ago.
by the manufacturer. At press time, the 3’s TSB list was . . . Years later, the silence is still the strangest part. EVs are
telling.) almost noiseless in traic, so you listen more and focus on

20 JUNE 2018 ILLUSTR ATION BY DA NIEL ZA LK US

 what you hear. Which is largely
the collective grumble of thou-
sands of dirty little explosions,
exhausting under nearby bum-
pers. If you possess an ounce of
logic, you think, Hell, what are we
doing? Digging up large bits of the
planet just to burn them? Pipes
pumping stinko gases into the air?
Who thought this madness was
sustainable? Of course it should
come to an end. No matter how
much we like it.
Perhaps this is the thing with
the Model 3. Even with issues of
quality and company, the car is
enough of a solved question to
make you look at the calendar.
It’s a lens into a world where cars
like it take over. It feels real, and
it makes you feel sheepish for a
want, however small, to hold on to
the old.
At the end of my second day
with the Tesla, somewhere in West
Los Angeles, I found myself at a
stoplight behind a first-generation
Mazdaspeed 3. Its windows were
tinted, and the hatch glass held a
cartoonish decal of a turbocharger.
Another sticker sat beneath
that one, in a serif-heavy font. It
read Blow Me. (Get it? Forced-
induction sex joke!) The car was
running rich enough to smell.
I chuckled, and then the light
turned green. The Mazda left
the line with a fruity bark. I was
reminded of a few old girlfriends,
and how those relationships felt as
they approached their respective
ends. That hazy sense of a ticking
P H O T O G R A P H B Y T O M S A LT

clock. Where two parties realize

they would damage the other in
the long run, but letting go isn’t
easy, because the good bits of the
relationship were so good.
Irrational, of course. But then,
what love isn’t? ■

Sam Smith is an editor at large for

R&T: SamSmith@hearst.com.
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 T H E F IR S T D R I V E | 2 0 19 A S T O N M A R T IN VA N TA G E

BREAKING
FREE
THE NEW VANTAGE IS MORE THAN SWOOPING LINES AND V-8 GRUFF.
IT’S THE FUTURE OF ASTON MARTIN.
B Y C H R I S C H I LT O N | P H O T O G R A P H Y B Y D E A N S M I T H

24
JUNE 2018
 OMETIMES, BUT NOT OFTEN, you drive a car over a stretch of road
and it does something so extraordinary, you simply have to turn

S around and take another run. Just, you know, to be sure. So you do,
again and again. Maybe it’s Dodge’s 840-hp Demon lifting an axle as
you launch down the drag strip. Or a Civic Type R—front-drive, but
limited-slip-equipped—actually pulling itself into that curve instead
of washing wide when you climb clumsily over the gas pedal. Spoiler alert: The new
Aston Martin Vantage is one of those cars.

There was a time, back when the David Brown behind
those iconic “DB” initials was in charge, when Aston
reserved the Vantage badge only for very special machines.
More recently, Vantage has come to represent the least
expensive way into an Aston. When the baby Vantage
appeared in 2005, slightly underpowered and fuzzy in its
handling, it felt like it hadn’t quite earned the badge. Since
then, the company has honed and improved that car, turn-
ing the V-8 model into something focused, and then stuf-
ing a V-12 in the nose to make it ferocious.
But those Vantages, like all Astons of the last decade,
were reheated leftovers from Ford’s tenure—the automo-
tive equivalent of what Britain’s thrifty home cooks call
“bubble and squeak.” The new Vantage, based on the same
all-new architecture as the larger DB11, promises a return
to the days when Vantage really meant something.
So we’ve come to Portugal, a country where people still
wander along the side of the road carrying bundles of
sticks as if the last 100 years never happened, to test the
new Vantage. Aston’s design department is doing some
testing too. It’s pushing forward, breaking free of the mold
that characterized the early 2000s cars. Some trademark
motifs remain: The grille can trace its origin to the Two
Litre Sports of the late 1940s; and in the elegant and taut
profile, you can still see the echoes of pretty Astons past.
But the rear, with its kicked up tail and discrete difuser,
looks strong and racy—much tougher than the old car.
The freshest and most arresting angle is from the front.
The broad nose and its tiny lights puncture
a wide clamshell hood. When passersby open
THE NEW VANTAGE
their mouths to comment, it’s anyone’s guess TRADES A BIT OF ITS
whether they’re about to liken it to the $2.3 PREDECESSOR’S
GRACE FOR A
million, track-only Aston Vulcan or the banjo SOMEWHAT MORE
kid in John Boorman’s Deliverance. PUGNACIOUS STYLE.

26 JUNE 2018
 2019 The door opens, as in other Astons,
ASTON MARTIN with a slightly skyward arc and little
VANTAGE efort. You drop into a low-mounted,
PRICE $153,081 Alcantara-wrapped bucket and stare
ENGINE DOHC up at the windshield—feeling like
32-VALVE 4.0-LITER
TWIN-TURBO V-8 a child trying Dad’s hot seat for the
PEAK OUTPUT first time, desperately hoping to get a
503 HP @ 6000 RPM
505 LB-FT @ peek at the hood unfurling toward the
2000–5000 RPM horizon.
TRANSMISSION
8-SPEED Where big brother DB11 goes for
AUTOMATIC, RWD restrained elegance, clearly aimed at
LxWxH
175.8 x 76.5 x 50.1 IN the more mature buyer, the Vantage’s
WEIGHT 3600 LB (EST) interior gives of angry sports-car
0–60 MPH 3.5 SEC vibes. The center console is purpose-
TOP SPEED 195 MPH
ful, but also crowded with switchgear.
ON SALE NOW
There are so many circle-shaped con-
trols—HVAC knobs, buttons for the
transmission, the ignition—that leaning in to locate a
switch is like eyeballing a spider. In other words, the ergo-
nomics could be better.
The beacon of comforting familiarity is the multimedia
system, a pairing of dash-top screen and tunnel-mounted
rotary controller that comes courtesy of Mercedes-Benz.
Although some buyers might prefer a touchscreen, the
functionality is good. The graphics are Aston-specific, so
you can mostly forget its origins.
The media system is actually the least interesting bit
from the Stuttgart parts bin. The piece you really want to
know about is under the hood. Thumb the big starter but-
ton and the eruption sounds familiar, yet unfamiliar, like
hearing a long-lost school friend’s voice out of nowhere on
a vacation to Tahiti. Was that? It couldn’t be?
It is. This is essentially the same 4.0-liter V-8 fitted
to the Mercedes-AMG GT, although Aston sticks with a
traditional wet-sump oil pan rather than the GT’s dry-
sump setup. Aston debuted this engine in the DB11, but
with the smaller Vantage, there are about 500 fewer
pounds of heft for the engine to move. In terms of power
to weight, not even the mighty DB11 V-12 can touch it.
These days, we’re used to new cars improving on their
predecessors by fractional amounts. For instance, the
Ferrari Portofino (page 70) is 0.1 second faster to 62 mph
than the California T it replaces. Not so with the Vantage.
By the time its predecessor, the naturally aspirated V-8
Vantage, had gasped its last breath, it was making 430
hp and 361 lb-ft of torque. This one pushes out 503 hp
and 505 lb-ft, the torque peak coming at less than half
the crank speed of the old engine. Result: Aston says the
new car is 1.1 seconds quicker to 60 mph than the last-gen
Vantage GTS.
You feel the urgency every time you press the right
pedal, whether mashing it from a stoplight or summon-
ing an extra dose of adrenaline at the kind of speed that
would have left the old car red-faced. With an indicated
180 mph on the digital display as we stroll down one of
Portugal’s always-deserted freeways, the Vantage picks
up speed fast. The drag-limited top speed is only 15 mph
away, but from the way it’s pulling, no one has told the
Vantage that. The last of the old-shape cars was all done
by 190 mph. Not a huge diference, except in the efort it
took to get there.
You can thank the two BorgWarner turbochargers
nestled cosily between the banks of the V-8—what engi-
neers call a hot-vee setup—for the
way the Aston hauls. This layout OPPOSITE: AMG POWER
makes for a short induction tract FAVORS A HEAVY RIGHT
FOOT. BELOW: THE
that keeps lag to a minimum, VANTAGE LOOSE ON A
although the throttle response RAINY CIRCUIT.
R OA DA N D T R AC K . C O M 29
can’t hold a candle to the old naturally
aspirated V-8’s. Those turbochargers
also dull the clarity, if not the outright
volume, of the noises filtering through
to the cabin. But the engine sounds
strong—and just diferent enough
from the AMG applications. Less hot
rod, more haute couture.
The Aston isn’t obscenely quick.
Five hundred three horses isn’t that
much these days, and an estimated
3600 pounds is. Its factory-mea-
sured 3.5-second 0-to-60-mph time
is rivaled or beaten by cars costing
less than $153,081 (see: Carrera GTS,
Camaro ZL1, or even the freakish new
M5). But the Aston feels quick enough
in the context of a package that’s
designed to do more than simply get
you to the state line like you’re out-
running a murder rap. The Vantage is
more nuanced than that.
Which brings us to those roads—
the ones that made us stop and go
back, just to make sure. They’re north
of Portimão, fast and free-flowing,
smooth enough in most stretches to
goad you into pushing a car, but pep-
pered with random craters and weird
depressions that make you really wish
you hadn’t.
A couple of times, we ran into those
hidden depressions in the Vantage, the
kind that are too close to avoid and
have you lifting your ass out of the
seat to minimize the anticipated cata-
strophic oil-pan-to-road impact. And
then . . . nothing. The Vantage glides
over them like it’s suspended from the clouds. It’s aston- column. This transmission might not slice through the
ishing. How a car rides might not be the sexiest thing to ratios like a Porsche PDK, but the torque converter
talk about when you’ve been tossed the keys to a 503-hp makes it a more soothing town companion. And with the
exotic, but it really matters. Because not having your back- driving modes flicked to Sport Plus or Track to engage
side pummeled means you’re happier spending more time the racier shift map, it has no trouble predicting your
in the seat. And because the more supple a car is, the more next move.
time its wheels spend keyed into the pavement—allowing With the clued-in suspension and excellent transmis-
your right foot to spend more time keyed into the throttle. sion, you can get comfy with the gas pedal. Lean on it
Eventually, the Vantage will provide something for firmly through curves, and you realize that the compo-
your left foot to do. Aston boss Andy Palmer has pro- sure over bumps doesn’t come at the expense of body
fessed a commitment to ofering manual-transmission control. Like the DB11, the Vantage features two buttons
cars, and we can expect a stick shift in the next year or so. on the top of its square steering wheel’s spokes: left for
If Aston had fitted this Vantage with the arthritic single- damper modes, right for throttle, steer-
clutch automatic that blighted the last car, we’d be sug- ing, and gearshift mapping. The Van-
A CROWDED CENTER
gesting you make other four-wheeled plans for the next tage skips the DB11’s GT damper setting, STACK CLUTTERS THE
12 months. But what’s actually mounted over the rear which feels too soft for any remotely ener- COCKPIT. LUCKILY, THE
LARGE CENTRAL TACH
wheels is ZF’s eight-speed automatic, operated by a pair getic driving, and goes straight for Sport, KEEPS THE IMPORTANT
of exquisite aluminum shift paddles fixed to the steering then Sport Plus, and Track. BITS FRONT AND CENTER.

30 JUNE 2018
 There’s a smidge of body roll but no
understeer, so you can push harder on the
gas and feel the rear tires load up as the
corner opens. The tail will go wide, but only
with a decisive nod from the driver.
There’s a smidge of body roll but no understeer, so you
can push harder on the gas and feel the rear tires load up
as the corner opens. The tail will go wide, but only with a
decisive nod from the driver. Given the go-ahead and with
the stability system disengaged, it arcs neatly around, the
electronically controlled limited-slip diferential—fit-
ted here for the first time—making it easy to moderate
just how much of your view forward you want to take in
through the door window, rather than the windshield.
But what it really likes, and what
you’ll like too, are those little dances
on the threshold of adhesion. Dances
that show of the 50/50 weight distri-
bution and teeter between neutral and
slight oversteering attitudes, requiring
the subtlest of corrective inputs and
almost no loss of momentum.
At the Portimão racetrack, that tech-
nique makes for some efortlessly swift laps. This place
has many gut-churning elevation changes and unsighted
apexes to learn. The Aston’s got your back. With the sta-
bility-control system relaxed and dampers set to their
firmest, you quickly get a feel for how much you can push
on that front end. And you can push it plenty, considering
the weight and non-track-spec rubber. Push the brakes,
too. Carbon-ceramics will come later, but this steel-rotor
setup is heroically strong and feels so good underfoot,
R OA DA N D T R AC K . C O M 31
we’re not sure why anyone would
bother upgrading.
A 911 Turbo might be quicker, but this car is
Eventually, rain sweeps in. Faced a tantalizingly viable opponent. One that
with such conditions, Jaguar’s
similarly shaped, rear-drive F-type
looks more distinctive and feels more special.
becomes unpleasantly spiky. The
Vantage remains friendly. There are quicker ways around might be quicker, but this car is a tantalizingly viable
a circuit or across a map, but the Aston’s ability to show opponent. One that looks more distinctive and feels more
you a good time at all speeds and in all conditions is a special. It stands on its own merit to the point that Daniel
trick not every fast car can pull of. Craig could come out and tell the world that Astons are
The one area where the Vantage hasn’t leapt forward is terrible, and it wouldn’t hurt at all.
steering. Make no mistake: It’s great. Roll away from cen- This is only the beginning. Apart from the manual and
ter and feel that reassuring build in weight. In any other roadster versions now being readied, it’s possible there
car, we’d be singing praises. But this is Aston, remember, will be V-12 and GT3-style track-biased versions that
one of the last holdouts for true steering feel. Like the are even faster and more focused. And then there are the
DB11, the Vantage has switched to an electrically assisted additional, very diferent cars Aston is preparing to serve
rack, and, like that car, for all its precision, there’s just up, including a hybrid crossover. A hybrid might sound
something missing—that textural surface feel. It was like anathema to Aston fans, but it reflects the radically
good enough to make one forgive the previous car’s defi- changing automotive landscape. As Palmer points out,
ciencies. Which is saying a lot, because, boy, were there Aston went bust seven times in its first hundred years,
deficiencies. and he has no intention of being responsible for an eighth.
At times, we wondered whether Aston, jettisoned by Cars as accomplished, as brave, and as self-confident in
Ford and lacking another automaker sugar daddy, could their abilities as this Vantage will ensure that doesn’t hap-
actually pull itself back from the ropes. It has. A 911 Turbo pen anytime soon. ■

32 JUNE 2018
 HISTORY | THE REVS INSTITUTE

PRESERVATION
HALL
AS THE AUTOMOBILE ROLLS INTO AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE, THE REVS INSTITUTE—
PART ARCHIVE, PART TEMPLE OF WORSHIP—COLLECTS AND PROTECTS MOTORING HISTORY.
B Y A . J. B A IME | P HO T O GR A P H Y B Y DW BUR NE T T & M AT T T IE R NE Y

34
JUNE 2018
 VEN AFTER NEARLY A DECADE,
Miles Collier still gets a visceral
E thrill as he scans the first floor of
the Revs Institute.
“Jiminy Crickets!” says Col-
lier, founder of the museum
and research facility in Naples,
Florida.
“Every time I walk in here, I am totally blown away. At
the same time, I’m horrified as to how much of my sum
and substance this all comprises, and what it takes to
keep it going. As you can imagine, it is considerable.”
The place is stufed with masterpieces—the Renoirs
and van Goghs of the auto world. Ten feet away, a 1962
Ferrari 400 Superamerica gleams under fluorescent
lights. Only 46 of these cars were built, and Enzo Ferrari
himself owned this one.
Upstairs is the first American-manufactured car to win
a Formula 1 grand prix: Dan Gurney’s 1967 Eagle, often
called the most beautiful open-wheel car ever built. It sits
near the Jorgensen Eagle that Bobby Unser drove to Indy
500 victory in 1975. Alfas, Bentleys, Bugattis. The New
York Times once called this group of vehicles “the finest
sports-car collection in America.”
Collier, 70, owns it all, and he is a bit of a mystery. This
much is known: He is a fine artist, philanthropist, and
scion of one of the wealthiest families in America, who
is so publicity shy, he refuses to be photographed. More
36 JUNE 2018
important, he is a man on a mission, one that the Revs
Institute embodies: to proselytize the important role the
automobile has played in human history, and to make the
car a subject of serious academic scholarship.
“The automobile is the single most important techni-
cal artifact of the 20th century,” Collier says. “It really did
shape the world in which we find ourselves today. Some-
thing with those kinds of credentials deserves to receive
respect and examination.”
Since Collier founded the Revs Institute in 2009, he and
his staf have labored to turn the hobby of car collecting
into a vocation. The institute has formed a partnership
with Stanford University to create a transdisciplinary
field to study cars and their influence on society. The Revs
Institute has possibly the largest specialized automotive
library in the world. A 12,000-square-foot workshop is
dedicated to high standards of auto restoration and inno-
vating ways to care for antique machinery.
As someone who prides himself on his historical knowl-
edge, Collier knows as well as anyone that the automobile
industry is on the verge of the most spectacular trans-
formation since the dawn of the motoring age. Autono-
mous cars and electric vehicles may
eventually make the internal-combus-
TOP: AN ALFA AND ABARTH
tion engine—and perhaps the human WELCOME VISITORS IN THE
driver—go the way of the horse and REVS LOBBY. OPPOSITE: A
1939 MERCEDES-BENZ W154,
buggy. “Change in our high-technology THE LAST OF THE SILVER
world is a fact of life,” Collier says. “The ARROW GRAND-PRIX CARS.
 real issue is, are people going to want to engage with an
artifact that in some sense resembles an automobile in
the future?”
This uncertainty is almost palpable in the halls of the
Revs Institute.
O UNDERSTAND WHY COLLIER CARES SO
T much, you have to go back two generations.
Barron Collier, Miles’s grandfather, made a
killing selling advertising in subways and
on streetcars across the country. He
invested a fortune in south Florida, becoming the state’s
largest land owner—including thousands of acres of what
the Associated Press described in 1952 as “primeval wil-
derness of the Everglades, inhabited only by alligators,
“The cars here are my interpretation of
transcendent technology and excellence
in aesthetics—the cars that changed the
way the world thought about automobiles.”
panthers, poisonous snakes, wildcats, strange birds, and a
few silent Seminole Indians.” The Collier family devel-
oped this slithering wilderness into the south Florida we
know today. Thus, this huge section is Collier County.
As this was happening, Collier’s father, C. Miles Collier,
and uncle Sam Collier played an outsized role in the emer-
gence of sports-car racing in the United States. During
the prewar years, they founded the Automobile Racing
Club of America, which morphed into the Sports Car Club
of America, and introduced the MG brand to the U.S.
After the war, they helped organize the first public road
races at Watkins Glen and, in 1950,
raced at Le Mans. They wrote about
the latter experience for a fledgling
publication called Road & Track.
Not long after, Sam was killed at the
Glen. In his honor, the Sam Collier
Memorial Grand Prix of Endurance
was organized at an airfield in cen-
tral Florida. That evolved into the
12 Hours of Sebring.
Miles Collier came along amid
all this, his family so famous that
his birth was announced in the
New York Times. Before he was old
enough to walk, Collier was hooked
on cars. “It must be some genetic
imprinting,” he says.
TOP: GURNEY’S EAGLE PERCHED ON ITS DISPLAY.
LOWER LEFT: SAM COLLIER WAS KILLED RACING THIS
1948 FERRARI TIPO 166. RIGHT: A STABLE OF 1950S
BRIGGS CUNNINGHAM THOROUGHBREDS.
Collier began shaping his 115-car collection in the
1980s. They are carefully organized and grouped in dif-
ferent sections of the building, which is reinforced to
protect against the most severe Florida hurricanes. “The
cars here are my interpretation of transcendent technol-
ogy and excellence in aesthetics, the cars that changed the
way the world thought about automobiles,” he says.
The first floor holds mostly sports cars, with a wing ded-
icated to Porsche. The collection also includes a fleet that
once belonged to Briggs Cunningham, a 20th-century
automotive pioneer (and a friend of the elder Colliers’).
The floor’s 1937 Delahaye, bodied by Figoni and Filaschi,
is one of the most striking cars ever to roll down a road.
Most of the collection’s race cars are on the second
floor. Among them are two Ford GT40s; one was the first
to wear Gulf Oil livery. There’s also a 1948 Ferrari Tipo
166—the first Ferrari model to win a
major race and the first imported to
the United States. Sam Collier died
after crashing this very car. If there is
a flagship here, it’s the 1939 Mercedes-
Benz W154 Silver Arrow grand-prix
car, which competed in Europe on Sep-
tember 3, 1939—the day Britain and
France declared war on Germany.
It’s easy to see why Collier would call these vehicles tran-
scendent: They embody game-changing ideas and ambi-
tions that mark critical moments. “If all this technology
goes away,” Collier says, referring to the internal-combus-
tion engine and the act of driving, “then historically, all
this is clearly very, very important.”
That is why, in 2014, he opened the Revs Institute to
the public. In keeping with its mission of being “the pre-
mier destination for automotive research and study,” it
is open as a museum and research library three days a
week. Collier believes that celebrating the automobile
R OA DA N D T R AC K . C O M 39
is the best way to spread the gospel of its
importance. “Part of the way you educate
people about the significance of cars is to
let people see them,” he says. “Educate and
thrill and charm and seduce people into the
fascination with these things.”
Preservation is a major part of the insti-
tute’s efort. Collier and his staf hold regular
symposia for collectors to disseminate ideas
about how to be better caretakers, how to
make decisions on what to buy, how to deter-
mine whether to restore a vehicle or not,
and more. Preserving old cars is not easy
or cheap. For example, Revs Institute techs
“exercise” the cars regularly. “We have to
keep everything running,” says Scott George,
the institute’s vice president. “You’ve got air-
cooled cars, water-cooled cars, hydraulic
brakes. All those systems have to be kept
functional.” Most of the vehicles in the Col-
lier Collection are driven on public roads, in
rallies, or on private racetracks.
A visit to the Revs workshop is the auto
equivalent of walking into Willy Wonka’s
chocolate factory. Many of Collier’s cars are
restored to their original state with obses-
sive attention to detail, while others main-
tain patina from years of use. Dents and
paint scratches can illuminate the life an
automobile has lived and the companions it
has kept.
The day of my visit, craftsmen were re-
creating the belly pan on a French 1919
Ballot that raced at the Indianapolis 500.
Jacked up next to it was a swoopy 1962 Lotus
Elite undergoing a mechanical and cosmetic
rebuild. There’s a paint shop and a machine
shop in this space, yet across all of it, the
floor appeared as clean as a surgical table.
Another goal is to attract the attention of
younger generations. The Revs Program at
Stanford has ofered classes such as Judg-
ing Historical Significance: The Automobile

1 2

4 5 6
3
7 8

1. THE REVS PAINT SHOP EXPERIMENTS WITH PATINA.

2. RACING LEGENDS ARE PREPPED FOR CONCOURS.
3. FUEL FILTERS AREN’T READILY AVAILABLE FOR A 1919
BALLOT INDY RACER, SO THE SHOP MUST MILL ITS OWN.
4. REFERENCE MATERIALS HELP WITH PART FABRICATION.
5. PROTOTYPING THE BALLOT’S EXHAUST.
6. BODY PANELS ARE SHAPED ON AN ENGLISH WHEEL. 7–8.
TUNING THE STRAIGHT-SIX OF A 1962 JAGUAR E-TYPE.

40 JUNE 2018
R OA DA N D T R AC K . C O M 41
and Mobility Entrepreneurship, plus an Open Garage
Talk series of speaking events. Thanks to the institute,
Stanford students have had the opportunity to judge the
world’s most important vintage-car show, the Pebble
Beach Concours d’Elegance.
Revs also employs interns in the workshop and library.
Archiving is a critical part of what the institute does,
because the importance of the automobile is not just
the vehicle itself, but the ancillary items orbiting its
existence: photos, marketing materials, shop manuals,
anything that could interest the most esoteric car nerd.
Among the impressive and eclectic catalog are a signed
copy of Enzo Ferrari’s memoirs, a pair of bear-fur gloves
used by drivers in the 1920s before cars had heaters, vin-
tage racing goggles and trophies, original blueprints of
championship race cars, and vast collections of periodi-
cals and other publications.
“Not a lot of car collections have as many staf working
in the library as it does on the cars,” George says.
42 JUNE 2018
All of it aims to spread Collier’s mes- DIGGING THROUGH THE
REVS LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES
sage. “The thing I’m most interested in UNCOVERS THE EXPECTED:
is the archeology of these things,” Col- PERIOD PHOTOGRAPHY
AND DOCUMENTS, AND
lier says. “Archeology is essentially the THE UNEXPECTED:
study of how human behavior has been RACE-WORN SUITS AND
shaped over time by the creation of arti- BEAR-FUR GLOVES.
facts and technology. The way people
used the automobile and looked at them, the way cars were
built and maintained. . . . All aspects of their physicality
are of great importance to me. That’s what we’re trying to
do here, to be a thought leader in what these things mean,
how to think about them, and how to care for them. Some-
body needs to be the call for action to protect, admire, and
appreciate these things for what they are.”
To that end, Collier has an ambition to create Revs fel-
lowships to support the next generation of thinkers and
caretakers in this arena—master craftsmen, historical
writers, etc. He also likes the idea of creating a wing for
cars that changed the world. This part of the collection
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would be less about game-changing technology and but unavoidable, unless you live in some rural backwater
achievement and more about the roles cars played in peo- somewhere. With respect to normal traic, I think cars
ple’s everyday lives. Collier singles out the 1964 ½ Ford from the 1960s on up are still competent. That being said,
Mustang, the first-generation Toyota Prius, and the semi- anyone who says they want to drive their 1912 Mercer on
nal Chrysler minivan—“a paradigm-initiating car.” There modern roads today has a suicide complex.”
would be a Citroën DS 19, a Fiat Cinquecento, even “a hor- Collier does not see some “great faceless leviathan”
rendous GM thing from the
1980s” that would illuminate
why America’s largest corpo- “There is something about the automobile that
ration “was on a fast skid to
oblivion” at the time. appeals to the fundamental DNA in people.
“There is something about Man has always been a toolmaker...a creature
the automobile that appeals to
the fundamental DNA in peo- of wanderlust. So what is more appropriate
ple,” Collier says. “And I think
I know what that is. Man has
than to create a machine for movement?”
always been a toolmaker. Man
has always been a creature of wanderlust. So what is more taking away our ability to drive cars, however. His opti-
appropriate for man the toolmaker and wanderer than to mism even extends to electric vehicles. “One hundred
create a machine for movement?” percent torque and zero rpm! Who doesn’t love that? The
day of the burnout has truly arrived!” he enthuses. That
is, assuming battery technology improves so EVs cost less
OR SOMEONE WITH SUCH A PASSION FOR and have better range, and we figure out how to create

F history and old technology, Collier is any-

thing but defeatist or cynical when it comes
to the future of mobility. “My thesis is that
electricity sustainably. His face contorts into a mischie-
vous smile. “Of course, the one thing about being a pundit
about anything is that you are virtually condemned to be
the things that made the automobile so wrong,” he says. “The one thing I know about the future is
pervasive are fundamental human drives that are not that it’s certainly going to surprise us.” ■
going away with changing technol-
ogy,” he says. People are still going to
want to go places, to choose the timing
of their travel, and to choose with
whom they travel. “How much will
insurance companies and government
or quasi-government organizations
interfere with our ability to drive auto-
mobiles?” Collier asks, rhetorically.
“The jury is out, but I am an optimist.”
He sees a future in which self-
driving technology will be a modal-
ity rather than a constant. “It may be
mandated at certain times and places,
like getting in and out of L.A., San
Francisco, New York, or Boston. They
may say that nothing but autono-
mous vehicles can go into Manhattan.
That’s fine. Who in their right mind
wants to drive in Manhattan?”
Collier concedes that some of the
vintage cars he adores could be leg-
islated of the road. “Gradually, the
arc of technology is taking cars of a
certain age or performance envelope
out of the mix,” he says. “That’s sad

THIS GRANITE-GREEN MCLAREN F1 SITS

AT THE EDGE OF THE REVS INSTITUTE ENTRYWAY,
BUT AT THE CENTER OF OUR DESIRES.

44 JUNE 2018
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 THEN & NOW | RUF AUTOMOBILE

BIRDS OF A
FEATHER
THREE DECADES AGO, A TINY SHOP IN GERMANY BUILT THE WORLD’S
FASTEST CAR. R&T RETURNS TO DRIVE ITS SUCCESSOR.
B Y S A M S M I T H | P H O T O G R A P H Y B Y T O M S A LT

47
JUNE 2018
 LOIS RUF IS THE KIND OF MAN
who acquires stuf. A handful of
A Porsche 911 roof panels stacked
like the inside of a Russian nest-
ing doll. An oice chandelier
made from old cylinder jugs. Or
the brand-new shell of a 1989
911, tucked in a warehouse next
to more classic Porsches than you can easily count. The
tub has fenders and doors but no VIN, just a stamped part
number on the dash. It has never been built into a car.
“I bought about 35 of these shells from the factory
when they were new,” Ruf says. “1989, before production
stopped. Then 993s and 964s. We have a few left over.”
Estonia Ruf waves a hand at the tub. “My husband is a
man of vision,” she says, chuckling. The line is half seri-
ous, half married-couple joke. She delivers it with the
kind of ease that comes from giving a lot of tours in a
place you have come to know extremely well.
Ruf’s wife helps run the family business. She is thin and
cheerful, with frizzy, electric brown hair. You can hear it
in her voice, the fact that her husband would if he could
buy everything he owns 10 times over, even if it made less
business sense than a bagful of monkeys. Because that is
what happens when you let an object you love saturate
your life, when it supports 65 employees, when it takes
your name to 211 mph on the nose of a yellow Porsche-
shaped bullet—as of that moment, the fastest production
car on earth—on a wet day in the spring of 1987.
That last moment was a landmark, both for this mag-
azine and for Ruf himself. It occurred in service of an
iconic R&T cover story called “The World’s Fastest Cars,”
48 JUNE 2018
where we took nine vehicles to Volkswagen’s 15.5-mile
Ehra-Lessien research oval in Germany. Ruf’s car, which
he called CTR, was based on an ordinary Porsche 911. It
wore a Ruf badge and Ruf VIN, because the German gov-
ernment had certified him as a manufacturer.
Someone at Ehra-Lessien thought the CTR looked like
a yellow bird, flitting across the horizon, and the name
stuck. Our drivers were Paul Frère, a Belgian, and Phil
Hill, an American. They ran on a track slickened by rain,
before the advent of electronic stability control or road
cars with significant aerodynamic downforce. Hill was
the first American Formula 1 champion, a three-time Le
Mans winner, and a brilliant, quirky statesman of Ameri-
can motorsport. Frère was R&T’s European editor, an
erudite, multilingual journalist-racer who drove in F1 for
Ferrari and who once won Le Mans overall.
Frère and Hill are gone now, but Ruf, 68, still works
at the same address. He still famously treats visitors like
family. Partly because his shop is in the German farming
hamlet of Pfafenhausen, a mapmaker’s sneeze 60 miles
east of Munich. You don’t get there by accident, and cer-
tainly not without knowing the story.
The Yellow Bird wasn’t Ruf’s first car, but its underdog
mystique still orbits his work. Most Rufs are based on a
contemporary Porsche. Every car from Pfafenhausen
costs well into six figures and is built in a production run
that could fit on a city block. Ruf says he engineers his
cars with an eye toward mechanical involvement, and
that his customers are happy to pay for handmade work
with history. Which is partly why, when the original CTR
turned 30, he built a new one. He dubbed it CTR 2017
and painted it the same Porsche Blossom yellow. The
body was carbon fiber, over a carbon
“punt” frame, with steel subframes.
When a nonrunning display version
debuted at the 2017 Geneva auto show,
it promptly imploded the automo-
tive internet, because the automotive
internet loves all things that even hint
at the intersection of fast old Porsche
and a good story.
Predictably, the new CTR uses a few
Porsche parts. Among them is a 700-
hp, twin-turbo, water-cooled, 3.6-liter
flat-six with roots in the company’s
Mezger engine family. (Non-Porsche-
nerd translation: Mezger-principle
engines powered both the Le Mans–
focused 911 GT1 and the first two gen-
erations of 911 GT3. They’re named for
LEFT: THE AUTHOR WITH RUF DESIGNER FREEMAN THOMAS AND
THE NEW, 700-HP RUF CTR. THE LATTER BOASTS A CARBON-
FIBER TUB AND SHARES NO BODYWORK WITH ANY PORSCHE.
 “People kept asking what it was based on. We kept trying
to tell them—it’s not based on anything! It’s ours!”
Hans Mezger, the Stuttgart engineer who chiefed their
development.)
Ruf says his new car will exceed 223 mph. No exterior
panel is shared with any Porsche. The 2017 car is 2.8 inches
longer in wheelbase than the original Bird, for high-speed
stability, and is nearly as wide as the famously hippy 959.
There are double A-arms at each corner, with pushrod-
operated Sachs dampers. The design features a host of
clever styling tricks, from wider doors to broader headlight
nacelles. All are aimed at helping the car look remarkably
like an old 911 until you park it next to one, at which point
it looks alien and ever so slightly larger and nicely funky.
Developing all of this cannot have been cheap. The Rufs
politely demur.
“We didn’t know if anyone would like it,” Estonia says.
“You never do. So we figured, maybe, if they don’t, we
make just one car for us. But they did.”
Development is ongoing; production starts in late 2018.
All 30 build slots, an estimated €750,000 apiece, were
sold by the end of the Geneva show. Ruf returned there
this year with a running prototype, driven across a snowy
Europe. He also shipped in a display example of the car’s
frame. It was almost pathologically perfect, with spell-
binding weave structure. The tubs are built by Gerg, a
Bavarian firm that makes DTM frames for BMW.
“Last year, at the show, people kept asking what it was
based on,” Estonia says. “So many people on the stand. And
we kept trying to tell them—it’s not based on anything!
R OA DA N D T R AC K . C O M 49
It’s ours! They didn’t understand. So this year, we could say,
it’s based on . . . this.”
Ruf has built two other generations of CTR since 1987.
The most recent, the mid-engine CTR3, is still in pro-
duction. That car was styled with help from Freeman
Thomas, the American designer behind the first Audi
TT. Thomas also drew the new CTR. Predictably, he is
a longtime Porsche freak—in addition to working for
the marque in the Eighties, he co-founded R Gruppe, an
American club for hot-rodded early 911s.
Thomas is present the week we visit Ruf. I ask if it was
intimidating, muddling with one of the greatest designs
in history.
“Not at all. I’ve grown up with this [shape], since the
1960s. In R Gruppe . . . we learned the ins and outs of
these cars. We weren’t afraid of them. And Alois was fear-
less, I think, in the Seventies and Eighties. He just did
whatever was needed to make the
cars work better.”
I mention that old Porsches always
seem a lot more appealing when you
see an owner not taking the car too
seriously. Making it their own.
“Design isn’t a one-time thing,”
Thomas adds. “You go through it
with life—a lot of it is figuring out
why you like what you do.”
The shop itself is open and bright,
50 JUNE 2018
with tiled floors and large windows. ABOVE: THE NEW CTR’S
PURPOSE-BUILT CARBON
Ruf the man was born next door, in TUB AND STEEL SUBFRAMES.
house number 19, which still stands. INSET: ALOIS AND ESTONIA
His father, Alois Sr., bought the villa RUF IN THE COMPANY DYNO
ROOM. OPPOSITE: REBUILDING
on that corner in 1939. At the time, it THE FIRST CUSTOMER CTR
also held a small park. After the war, FROM 1987—A COMPLETE
TEARDOWN, PRECEDED BY A
the senior Ruf tore down the park and FEW PULLS ON THE DYNO.
built a shop. The younger Ruf grew it.
I step into a dyno room with Claudio
Schropp, one of Ruf’s technicians. Schropp is young and
blond and broad-shouldered, only a few years out of
school, with Hazet wrenches and a large blue tool cabinet.
He rolls his box around in a kind of walking grin.
Ruf has two dynos, one for water-cooled engines and
one for air-cooled. Schropp spends much of his time on
the latter. He does not work on wassergekühlt, he says
cheerily, in lumpy English. “Only the old cars. My choice.”
In another life, before becoming
a journalist, I was the world’s slow-
est professional mechanic. So before
my visit, I asked Ruf if I could work
a little in his shop, to get to know the
place. Schropp walks me to the 3.4-
liter twin-turbo flat-six of the first
customer CTR, a 1987 model owned
by an American collector. The car
came to Ruf for restoration, and the
engine, now in prep for a rebuild,
 hasn’t been apart since the Eighties. We’re to unbolt the
motor from the dyno, move it to the engine department,
and pull its turbos and exhaust.
Ruf’s air-cooled dyno was built in 1983. The walls are
unfinished clay brick and so close that the equipment
doesn’t so much live in the room as wear it like a hat. The
dyno operator is separated from the engine by a thick
glass window that Ruf salvaged from the demolition of a
The engine starts with a cough, then snarls
into tenor notes in the middle of its range.
Like every Ruf I’ve ever heard, it’s operatic.
Schropp breaks out his grin again.
local bank. The room’s output is now fed through a com-
puter, but the original analog torque gauge is still present.
It looks large enough to weigh a cow.
The engine starts with a cough, then snarls into tenor
notes in the middle of its range. Factory Porsche turbo
engines often go hoarse under load, like a vacuum cleaner.
Every Ruf I’ve ever heard has somehow managed to be
more operatic.
Schropp breaks out his grin again. “A very nice engine.”
After a few minutes, we let the motor cool. When we
come back, I disconnect the intercooler air feed while
Schropp starts unhooking fuel hoses. The American’s
engine made more than 530 hp at 6000 rpm, he says.
“Every CTR1 engine is a good engine. They always make
over 500 hp.” Which sounds like a line, but his shoulders
and eyebrows shrug in a way that makes it believable.
We move the motor from a dyno room to a stand in the
engine department. Schropp and I work silently for a bit,
removing turbo plumbing. Then I spill a few dollops of oil
on the floor while unbolting a feed
line. Schropp, organizing hardware,
chuckles.
“Our boss hates this,” he says,
pointing to the spill. He pufs his
cheeks and mimes his hands explod-
ing of his head. Kneeling to clean up,
I notice that the shop floor is spotless.
Even in the dark corners under the
benches, where most working shops are filthy.
It occurs to me that certain parts of the world will
always be quietly satisfying. Like whenever you discover
that a famously detail-oriented person is, in fact, atten-
tive to detail.
Later, as I’m putting away tools, Estonia pops into the
room. I was impressed by the American engine, I say,
given that it had never been apart.
“You know, the 469-hp number that we gave to the
press for that car . . . that was a worst-case scenario,” Esto-
nia says. More laughter.
R OA DA N D T R AC K . C O M 51
 HE PAVEMENT SHINES IN THE VIDEO, obvi-
T ously wet. Former R&T art director Richard
Baron brought a camcorder to Ehra-
Lessien. I learn this over dinner at Ruf’s
house, a tidy farm near a small river. As
Estonia fries schnitzel, Ruf pops a tape into a VHS deck
and plops onto the couch. The TV lights up with a Ger-
man parking lot and a gaggle of Eighties poster cars. A
young Peter Egan, joking after a Callaway Corvette blows
its engine. Then straight-line testing at Hockenheim.
Plus a dozen happy little moments not in print, like when
Phil Hill climbs into the trunk of an AMG Hammer on
one of Frère’s acceleration runs, to help traction. (“Just
give it a little more hell,” Hill says. Then they shut the
trunk on him, and Frère lights up the tires.)
One run around the oval left Frère wide-eyed. On the
tape, he sits in the Yellow Bird, a soft smile, blinking rapidly.
“Dreihundersiebenunddreissig.” Then more German.
Ruf translates: “Three hundred and thirty-seven. In the
other direction, two kilometers slower.”
Three hundred thirty-seven kilometers per hour is
209.4 mph. More than 7000 rpm in fifth gear. A legend,
visibly giddy. (The 211-mph run came with Hill, later,
when the track had dried.)
It’s a diicult image to shake, so I decide to not shake it. I
let the footage play in my head the next afternoon, when Ruf
and I drive the Bird and his new prototype CTR to nearby
hills. The weather, Ruf tells me, is what the Germans call
52 JUNE 2018
“hair dryer”—storms blowing over the Alps, giving clear
skies and a dusting of rapidly melting snow. The land is
covered in something like lodgepole pines, pin-straight and
dense as hairbrush bristles. They block enough of the low
winter sun that the road goes dark for long stretches. The
contrast makes the cars glow.
We stop for photography at a cluster of small houses.
“The car was going to be red,” Ruf says. “All Porsche test
cars were then Guards red, because it popped in sunlight.
We had it loaded in the paint gun. Yellow was, at the time,
environmentally unfriendly. I said, just one car, why not?
Then clouds at Ehra-Lessien, and it was the only car at the
shoot that looked right on film. Luck.” And the house color
was forever set, and that was that.
We came for the new CTR, but Ruf ofers to let me drive
the old one. I glance at Tom Salt, our photographer, set-
ting up a shot with the 2017 car. Words become diicult.
“I’ll be . . . a bit?”
I am gone maybe too long. My head barely clears the
dash. The seats are low Recaro shells with harnesses, the
same type as in the video. The engine
fires on the first crank but is laggy and
ABOVE: RUF AT THE
snorty around town. Small throttle WHEEL OF THE CAR
openings at low rpm produce hiccups THAT CEMENTED HIS
REPUTATION. OPPOSITE:
and surges, so I don’t use small throttle THE UNFINISHED CABIN OF
openings. Big throttle gives a one-two THE NEW CTR PROTOTYPE.
DATA EQUIPMENT AND
beat before the car hurtles of. The cock- EXPOSED DUCTWORK ARE
pit is Eighties 911, comfy but empty: FOR TESTING ONLY.
 Blaupunkt radio, antenna taped to the windshield. Thin
carpet. An integrated roll cage.
The five-speed gearbox is slow, the shifter indiferent
and long-throw. The pedals are floor-hinged, long-travel,
and an acquired taste. All like any old 911, because the car
is one, VIN or no. Also like any 911, the CTR is work to
“I want the car to be part of you,” Ruf says.
“An extension of your jeans. And to be
this way without all the electronic gadgets,
pure and honest, no filtering.”
drive—every corner is a juggle of boost and rear-weight
bias, managing torque spits to pavement. But the good bits
are more raw: compliance, a steering wheel dancing out
bubbles of feedback, plus perpetually adjustable balance,
if you talk to the wheels and pedals in the right language.
A friend who once drove this exact car told me that it
can burn its tires of in second gear on a warm day. In the
cold, you can do that in third. The needle just flits around
the tach in explosive, rubber-band bursts. If you’re hus-
tling at all, you focus on managing grunt, working to keep
the rear of the car happy. It all feels wonderfully goony,
and it suggests that it would somehow feel just as goony
with more grip, on warmer rubber and asphalt.
Fast 911s are rarely goony. You also cannot drive an
original CTR without feeling like maybe more 911-shaped
cars should feel the same.
Or feel like Ruf’s prototype, for that matter. The old
Bird was built on Porsche’s narrow Carrera body, for
reduced drag; standard 911 Turbos used fatter fenders.
From the outside, the new one has less
visible flare but seems wide as a bus by
comparison. Its interior is a mishmash
of exposed control boxes and neatly
clamped wiring, like the guts of a mili-
tary airplane. The adjustable steering
column, lifted from a 997-generation
911, has no cosmetic trim. The button
for the standard traction control is tem-
porarily zip-tied to the dash. Almost everything is Alcan-
tara-covered or bare carbon, and obviously unfinished.
On the road, the car is an odd mix of familiar sensations:
The hollow-boned, whole-body resonance that carbon cars
give over bumps; the tiny pillars and close dash of a 993; a
sound like the Bird, with the same sing-songy rip but more
manicured yowl at the top of the tach. Low rpm gives zero
hiccups but a whif of turbo lag—enough to make the car
feel beasty but not require any special treatment.
I get maybe an hour at the wheel, a mix of town and
autobahn, mostly with Ruf as passenger. He reminds
me, repeatedly, that the CTR is a prototype. He doesn’t
like the pedals, wants to tweak the suspension tune. He
R OA DA N D T R AC K . C O M 53

asks that Salt not photograph the unfinished engine bay,
so “as not to be prejudged.”
We head onto the autobahn, eyeblink blats to 150 mph
between patches of traic. Ruf is silent until clear road,
at which point he waves a hand and gives an insistent,
“Go, go, go.”
The CTR currently uses an experimental seven-speed
manual that may not see production. Seventh is a practi-
cal gear, low enough to help highway pull. I barely touch it
on the autobahn, hanging out instead in the lower gears.
Toeing the throttle on boost makes the cockpit echo with a
kind of whistling-air death noise, intake honk outshouting
the exhaust and bouncing of the uninsulated carbon roof.
The prototype is far faster than the Bird, though the
calmer chassis of the new car makes it feel less manic.
The minimal lag of its engine can also lull you into forget-
ting its explosive potential, an approach that is mirrored
by the rest of the car. The hydraulically assisted steering
is nicely light at low speed but a little dry on feel. Same for
the suspension, which can seem stif-kneed and a shade
overdamped while cruising around. But if you lean into
it, Ruf's prototype grows fluid and limber, both involving
and ferociously transparent.
“I want the car to be part of you,” he says. “An exten-
sion of your jeans. And to be this way without all the elec-
tronic gadgets, pure and honest, no filtering.”
In 1987, a car’s top speed was an immediate, practical
54 JUNE 2018
2017 RUF CTR
PRICE $790,000 (EST)
ENGINE DOHC 24-VALVE 3.6-LITER
TWIN-TURBO H-6
PEAK OUTPUT 700 HP @ 6750 RPM
649 LB-FT @ 2750–4000 RPM
TRANSMISSION 7-SPEED MANUAL, RWD
L x W x H 165.6 x 71.6 x 49.8 IN
WEIGHT 2800 LB (EST)
0–60 MPH 3.3 SEC (EST)
TOP SPEED 224 MPH
ON SALE SOLD OUT
gauge of its engineering. In 2018, that number is beyond
irrelevant. The world’s fastest cars are now so potent
as to share little with ordinary passenger machines.
Autobahns are so crowded that even an ’87 CTR is hard-
pressed to show its full talent; the current production-
car speed king, the 278-mph Koenigsegg Agera RS, will
likely never demonstrate that number in public. Even if
it does, the majority of humanity is now more interested
in whatever Elon Musk is doing than in which oligarch
special sits at the tip of the tech spear.
The layout is the funny part. On paper, a carbon-fiber
machine shaped like an air-cooled 911 seems both impos-
sible future and past-stuck backward-think. But maybe,
decades from now, as major carmakers grow more occu-
pied with automation and sexless mobility solutions,
Ruf’s blueprint will be something of a way forward.
Maybe it will presage a way forward with more afordable
iron—we’ll re-create old loves as a skein of personality
over hyperevolved tech, chasing feel above all.
That view is undeniably optimistic. But then, so is a
tiny family company tooling up to build something like
the new CTR. The car represents one of the things I’ve
always loved about Ruf’s work, and about this business in
general—the notion that the possible is rarely defined by
the rules we know. The kind of emotional momentum that
you can’t measure or pop into a spreadsheet. It’s a vision.
And all the better for it. ■
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 T H E A N A LY S I S

A GILDED AGE
LUXURY BUYERS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN SPOILED, BUT NOW THEY’RE
SPOILED FOR CHOICE: OLD-WORLD SEDANS, NEWCOMERS, AND SUVS ALIKE.
TO DISCERN THE FUTURE OF LUXURY, ONE MUST INDULGE IN IT.
BY JACK BARUTH | PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANDREW TRAHAN

HEN IT COMES TO LUXURY CARS, This is not a head-to-head comparison: The Naviga-
we are all Supreme Court Justice tor can’t catch the Lexus on a fast road, nor can the S63

W
Potter Stewart. In determin-
ing whether Louis Malle’s film
Les Amants was legally obscene,
he gave us an expression for the
ages: “I shall not today attempt
further to define [pornography].
. . . But I know it when I see it.” The same holds true for the
idea of a luxury car: The concept seems obvious, but the
details can be hard to pin down.
What defines “luxury”? Features? Cost? Exclusivity?
In some places, the mere possession of a private automo-
bile is considered a luxury; elsewhere, valets are parking
Flying Spurs in the back lot to make room for Phantoms
up front. How about the “car” part? Nowadays, a full-size
luxury vehicle is twice as likely to be an SUV as a tradi-
tional sedan, according to IHS Markit. So if we still think
we know a “luxury car” when we see one, it might be time
to get our vision checked.
To do just that, we selected three very diferent ways to
spend six figures and released them in their natural habi-
tat of Pasadena, California. First up: the Lexus LS 500,
freshly reimagined as an unashamedly Japanese take on
the premium sedan. It no longer relies on price and dura-
bility to lure buyers from the Europeans. Next up, Lincoln’s
all-new Navigator Black Label takes the luxury SUV to
dizzying and remarkably self-indulgent heights. Last but
not least, is the Mercedes-Benz S-class. No other vehicle
better exemplifies the luxury car in its traditional form.
After more than five decades, the S-class remains peerless,
not so much primus inter pares as Tyrannosaurus rex. As
with a Rolex Daytona or a Hermès Birkin bag, the desir-
ability of the object itself transcends trend or fashion.
tow an Airstream. We don’t expect the Lincoln to herald
the obsolescence of the S-class as the archetypical luxury
car. On the contrary, the S-class will likely retain a cer-
tain eminence all the way to the demise of the personally
owned automobile. In the uncertain times between now
and then, however, a change is gonna come.
LUXURY REALIGNED
THE APPEAL OF THE FIRST LEXUS LS 400 was more or less
the same reason people see a Guns N’ Roses tribute band:
From a distance, it looks like the real thing, and you are
less worried about breakdowns. Its successor, the LS 430,
aped the bland Boeing-esque massiveness of the 1990s
W140 S-class. The fourth-generation LS 460 owed much
of its contouring and profile to the 2000–2006 W220.
In that context, the spindle grille and eight-window,
NASCAR-raked profile of the LS 500 can be seen for
what they truly are: a declaration of independence. There
was a time when it was profitable for a Lexus to resemble
a Mercedes, but the prestige of Toyota’s luxury brand is
now so strong that the most profitable thing for a Lexus to
resemble is, in fact, another Lexus.
This realignment also reflects a reality that Toyota
might be less eager to trumpet. In 1990, the LS 400 was
the core product and the best-selling model at Lexus deal-
ers, but in 2017, the LS 460 accounted for just under one
and a half percent of the brand’s total volume in the U.S.,
outsold by every vehicle in the lineup.
Yet Lexus has extracted an ornament from an incon-
venience. Shorn of the responsibility to hold up a balance
sheet, the LS 500 is free to serve as a branding talisman,

R OA DA N D T R AC K . C O M 57
a corporate mission statement rendered
in sinuous metal. This is apparent from
Shorn of the responsibility to hold up a
the moment you open the remarkably balance sheet, the LS 500 is free to serve as
light door and take a seat behind the
wheel. Its predecessor featured a forest
a branding talisman, a corporate mission
of wood trim, but the new car cuts that statement rendered in sinuous metal.
down to a few decorative panels and a
presence on the steering wheel. Where
the timber used to be, we have Great Wave–styled, con- and when you change the setting, the digits perform a
trast-stitched leather. The two-tone metal bands of the rolling animation.
center-console vents evoke high-end Japanese stereo They say it never rains in Southern California, but as
products from the Eighties. The climate-control panel we point the LS 500 out of La Cañada
reinforces that theme and ofers a minor, but supremely Flintridge and up into the mountains of TWO NEW TAKES ON LUXURY:
THE LARGE, IN-CHARGE
satisfying, refinement: The desired temperature is shown the Angeles Crest Highway, a downpour LINCOLN AND THE HIGHLY
on a small, high-resolution black-and-white LCD display, is creating pools of water at every apex. STYLIZED LEXUS.

58 JUNE 2018
 2018 The Lexus is untroubled. The twin-turbo original 1998 Navigator, basically an F-150 with a cap
LEXUS LS 500 V-6 applies its 416 hp through the rear on the back, would have been a bad joke at this price. Its
20-inch summer tires and efortlessly replacement, which persisted from 2003 to 2017 through
PRICE $75,995
POWERTRAIN rockets up the short segments between a series of shambolic face-lifts, was mechanically compe-
3.5-LITER TWIN- turns. With the drive mode set to Sport tent but short on curb appeal. Nothing in the Navigator’s
TURBO V-6, 416 HP,
442 LB-FT; RWD, S+, body roll dwindles to a communi- history suggests it has the heritage or prestige to compete
10-SPEED AUTOMATIC
cative minimum and the transmission with six-figure sedans.
LxWxH
206.1 x 74.8 x 57.1 IN swaps gears with aggressive clunks. The Casual observers are forgiven their skepticism. This lat-
WEIGHT 4800 LB experience will be familiar to anybody est efort is not particularly handsome from any angle, even
0–60 MPH
4.6 SEC who has driven the Lexus IS 350 F Sport. in the added-cost and very vintage Chroma Molten Gold
TOP SPEED As will the packaging. The LS 500 of our test vehicle. You might dismiss it as a plated-plastic
136 MPH
ON SALE NOW
is just an inch or two smaller in most “luxury” front end tacked onto yet another full-sized SUV.
dimensions than the S-class, but in con- The magic is on the inside. When was the last time an
trast to that car’s airy, spacious cock- American car had an interior this thoroughly designed,
pit, the Lexus’s interior is intimate verging on cramped, seemingly without regard to cost of materials or diiculty
with headroom barely suicient for a six-foot-two driver. of assembly? The suicide-door ’61 Continental, maybe.
Call it a child of a lesser god, or perhaps just more faith- The Navigator Black Label bristles with chrome, leather,
ful to the packaging of the old 560SEL.
The diference is further reflected in the
instrument panel, where the horizontal This Navigator is what you would get
sweep of the S63’s full-LCD combination
dashboard and infotainment module is
if Frank Gehry and Ray Eames were
replaced in the LS by a modest screen set to redesign the Rolls-Royce Ghost.
deep within a leather bezel resembling a
Wolf valet tray. Second-row accommoda-
tions are tight. There is a power-folding ottoman for the exotic woods, and transparent surfaces, all of which are
VIP sitting in the right rear, but using it renders the seat perfectly lit through massive side windows and a pan-
ahead nonfunctional. oramic sunroof. The result is what you’d get if Frank
On the twisting path to the Mount Wilson Observa- Gehry were to redesign the Rolls-Royce Ghost with assis-
tory, the LS 500 confirms its excellence as a driver’s car, tance from Ray Eames.
never experiencing brake fade and permitting a small but Not everything is beyond reproach—the standard-issue
gratifying amount of sideways attitude before the stabil- F-150 center-stack buttons are uncomfortable in their
ity system clamps down gently but firmly. newly upscale surroundings. But this is, in virtually all
The rest of the car is traditional Lexus, for better and respects, a modern expression of the no-corners-cut phi-
worse. It can be eerily quiet; more than once we mistook losophy that guided the development of the Continental
the well-insulated engine at idle for an auto-stop system. Mark II and its immediate successors. Let Rip Van Win-
The cabin can mimic a concert hall, although the Mark kle fall asleep behind the wheel of a parked Lincoln in
Levinson–branded stereo is not up to the standards set by 1963, then wake him up in the Navigator Black Label. He
the Revel Ultima system in the Navigator. While the LS’s will not be the slightest bit surprised.
combination volume-and-track-selection knob is a work Scratch that. He would be amazed by the Navigator’s
of functional art and should be standard in every car, dashboard and its cornucopia of fascinating graphics.
accessing other features requires a tiresome slog through The main gauges are presented as chrome-trimmed dials
the center-console menu. set in darkness and spotlit
The transition from cover band to concert headliner around the position of the
suits the LS. Rightly renowned since its birth for being indicator needles. Twisting 2018 LINCOLN
durable, it can now also be characterized as desirable. the drive-mode knob results
NAVIGATOR 4x4
BLACK LABEL
in a full-screen animation for
each choice. PRICE $94,900
NEW SHAPE OF SOPHISTICATION Over the course of 400 POWERTRAIN
3.5-LITER TWIN-
IN 1973, REAL ESTATE BROKER ROBERT J. RINGER published miles, subtle touches became TURBO V-6, 450 HP,
510 LB-FT; 4WD,
a book in which he asserts, “Every person has the inher- apparent. The steering wheel 10-SPEED AUTOMATIC
ent right to ‘self-proclaim’—to announce, at any time he is the best on ofer here, pro- LxWxH
210.0 x 83.6 x 76.3 IN
chooses, that he is on any level he chooses to be on.” But viding a wide range of func-
WEIGHT 5900 LB
self-proclaiming only works, he adds, if you can back it up tions without distracting the 0–60 MPH
by performing at that level. driver. Adjustable seats are 5.5 SEC (EST)
TOP SPEED
Consider the $100,315 sticker price of our Lincoln Nav- efectively perfect and easy to 115 MPH (EST)
igator Black Label an example of self-proclaiming. The use. The driver aids are the ON SALE NOW

R OA DA N D T R AC K . C O M 59
least intrusive and most helpful, particularly the radar Which is probably why Mercedes is S-CLASS: CHALLENGED
BUT NEVER SURPASSED.
cruise control. The Lincoln is not as quiet as the Lexus, attempting to push those boundaries of
but it’s not far of, particularly at low speeds. price and taste even further. As optioned,
As with the LS 500, the second row is tight, although our S63 rings the register for nearly twice the MSRP of
each of the two captain’s chairs has its own video screen in a standard S450 sedan. The diference between this car
a floating mount on the seat ahead. The third row benefits and the outstanding base S560 is over $70,000—enough
from extra space created by the use of an independent to buy a Corvette Z51, which more or less matches the
rear suspension. AMG in a drag race. Yet it’s not hard to see where the
Thanks in part to that suspension, the Navigator splits money went. The hand-built engine, twisting the crank
the ride-quality and dynamic diferences between its to the tune of 603 hp and a diesel-truck-like 664 lb-ft of
live-axle-equipped, full-sized-SUV competition and the torque. The outrageous interior, filled stem to stern with
top-end sedans. It accelerates with authority that nearly leather stitched on top of leather, and big, complex pieces
equals the Lexus, and it is more than capable of main- of carbon fiber. Forged wheels. A refrigerator in the rear
taining unreasonable speeds up and
down a mountain, but it makes no
pretense at sporting deportment. This is luxury with the purity of raw opium,
Perhaps that last quality is why
the Navigator is so satisfying. For the
and it can feel equally difficult to give up.
past few decades, luxury buyers have
been forced to eat their sporty vegetables before they may console. Seats that ofer multiple programs of massage
have their luxurious desserts. We have come to associate and pressure relief. This is luxury with the purity of raw
aggressive suspension tuning and touring-car styling as opium, and it can feel equally diicult to give up.
inevitable consequences of a high transaction price when, Another form of luxury, one relentlessly promoted by
in fact, they were never mandatory. This big Lincoln cuts Mercedes-Benz, is semiautonomous driving technology.
that Gordian knot with a chrome-and-leather sword— Yet the S63’s $2250 Driver Assistance package seems
and that alone is enough to validate its self-proclamation. designed to punish more than
assist. Crossing the road’s edge
2018
line, or anything that looks like MERCEDES-AMG S63
BENCHMARK LUXURY it, results in a harsh brake and
IT’S A GERMAN ICON TURNED GLOBAL CITIZEN, bred for swerve that is guaranteed to PRICE $148,495
POWERTRAIN
the autobahn but found everywhere from Los Angeles elicit a middle finger or worse 4.0-LITER TWIN-TURBO V-8,
to Lagos, beloved by owners as diferent as John Gotti from the pickup behind you. No 603 HP, 664 LB-FT; AWD,
9-SPEED AUTOMATIC
and Johnny Cash. Most critically, the Mercedes S-class Elizabethan manservant ever LxWxH
has long been the only way to spend this kind of cash on displayed this much truculence 208.5 x 75.0 x 59.0 IN
WEIGHT 4850 LB
an automobile without raising the slightest question as in the performance of his duty.
0–60 MPH 3.4 SEC
to your taste or sanity. Yet there are barbarians at that As one would expect from an TOP SPEED 186 MPH
particular gate, and their numbers are swelling. AMG, the power would make ON SALE NOW

60 JUNE 2018
 THE S-CLASS’S LUSH
INTERIOR REMINDS
US WHY IT ENDURES
AS A STYLE AND
STATUS ICON.

Lord Acton reach for an airsickness bag, and

it gives no sense of abating until the speed-
ometer is buried deep in the area marked
“felonious.” On a fast two-lane back road, it
matches the Lexus for midcorner speed, and
obliterates it accelerating and slowing down.
Left-lane dawdlers who register neither the
Lincoln’s bulk nor the cruel alien visage of
the Lexus exhibit a knee-jerk willingness to
yield to the three-pointed star approaching
at warp speed in their mirrors.
For comfort and coddling, the Lincoln
might have the best driver’s seat, but pas-
sengers will universally prefer the rear
accommodations of the S63. It’s spacious
and long-haul comfortable, boasting a vari-
ety of first-class touches, including pillows
that attach to the adjustable headrests.
Very Emirates A380 business class, which is
surely no accident.
Mercedes has discerned that there’s money
to be made in upscale variants, which is why
even more expensive S65 AMG and Mer-
cedes-Maybach models join the S63 in the
showroom. It’s a testament to the luxury sta-
tus of the S-class that, even equipped
to nearly $180,000, the S63 feels like a
value. Part of the car’s charm has always A seismic shift in our definition of
been its ability to transcend the tastes
of its owners. It bears the disparate
“luxury car” has allowed everything from
indignities of quilted-ostrich-interior truck-based SUVs to electric hatchbacks
gullwing conversions and no-options-
selected, black-over-tan configuration
to fight for a share of the upscale pie.
with equal grace and felicity.
Yet the S63—delightful as it may be—just whets our The luxury car of tomorrow will still need to provide
appetite for the old-money luxury of a standard S-class. first-class accommodations for at least four people. It
Even the entry-level S450 has that superbly spacious will still need the ability to isolate the driver from the
cabin with its Focke-Wulf wraparound visibility, the madding crowd, through insulation against noise, vibra-
absolutely stress-free absorption of everything from free- tion, and harshness, and via the opportune application
way to back alley, and the knowledge that you have cho- of superior horsepower. It will need to be a little bigger,
sen one of the safest vehicles in history. To pile onto that, brasher, and more beautiful than the everyday vehicles
as the S63 does, is to tread the awkward middle ground around it. Most of all, however, it needs to convey a sense
between techno tour de force and wretched excess. of occasion. Ask anybody who has owned an old Mer-
cedes 560SEL for a long time, and they will tell you that
the car never stops impressing its occupants. That, in a
USTICE POTTER’S DECISION to draw a toler- nutshell, is the diference between the truly luxurious

J ant distinction between the prurient and

the genuinely obscene opened the flood-
gates to massive and permanent changes
in popular culture. Similarly, a seismic
shift in our definition of “luxury car” has allowed every-
thing from truck-based SUVs to electric hatchbacks to
fight for a share of the upscale pie, in some cases to the
detriment of the luxury sedan’s popularity. Yet most, if not
all, of the core requirements remain the same, regardless
of packaging.
and the merely costly.
Measured against those criteria, each of these cars is
an unqualified success. It’s not that surprising, really. We
know what a luxury car is when we see it, and to our eyes
the LS 500, Navigator, and S63 all fit the description. As
with so many other aspects of modern life, however, we
are now forced to look a little further and see just a little
more. So while the traditional luxury sedan remains with-
out peer, it must now face something it has never truly
experienced: competition. ■

62 JUNE 2018
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 THE FIRST DRIVE | 2018 FERRARI PORTOFINO

TOUR DE FORCE
NO LONGER A BLACK SHEEP, FERRARI’S ENTRY-LEVEL GT
BUMPS UP THE POWER, POISE, AND DESIRABILITY.
B Y C H R I S C H I LT O N

70
JUNE 2018
 HE CALIFORNIA WAS TO FERRARISTI standing by if you plan on subjecting friends to more than a
what the Epiphone Les Paul is to Gib- few minutes in the back.

T son guitar fans. A Ferrari but never

the Ferrari. Yet the hardtop convert-
ible brought thousands of new cus-
tomers to dealers’ doors. Moreover,
it followed an important line of cars
The turbocharged V-8 carries over from the California T,
albeit with new pistons and intake runners and more boost
from the turbos. Power rises from 552 to 591 hp, backed by 561
lb-ft of torque. A seven-speed dual-clutch automatic remains
the only available transmission. Ask Ferrari engineers why
from Maranello, stretching back seven there’s no manual, and their eyes roll back in their head like
decades, that accentuated daily-driving duties over track they’re examining the underside of their frontal lobe. (The Cal-
performance. Think Enzo commuted to work in a 250 GTO? ifornia was briefly ofered with a stick. Maybe three customers
The old man’s choice of wheels—when pried out of his beloved ordered it, according to Ferrari.)
Peugeot sedans—was in fact the cruisy 330 GT 2+2. An electronic limited-slip diferential, fitted to Ferrari’s
So, despite purists’ distaste for the California recipe, there mid-engined sports cars as far back as the F430, but never
are no big changes to its successor, the Portofino. It has a to the front-engined California, works in tandem with the
new name, cribbed from a postcard-picture coastal village traction-control system and magnetorheological dampers
in northern Italy, and a lighter, stifer aluminum structure making for more confident hammer-down cornering. Aided
clothed in a diferent design, which apes the by an extra 39 hp and a claimed 176-pound
812 Superfast. weight loss, that dif also contributes to Fer-
The Portofino is a more aggressive, more 2018 FERRARI rari’s quoted 0.1-second improvement on
masculine-looking car than the California, PORTOFINO the old car’s 3.6-second 0–62-mph time.
with pronounced shoulders and an elongated PRICE $214,533 Doesn’t sound like much, but the Portofino
fastback tail. It’s handsome both in coupe POWERTRAIN feels even faster.
3.9-LITER TWIN-TURBO
guise and, 14 seconds later, as a convertible, V-8, 591 HP, 561 LB-FT; As before, Ferrari manages boost pres-
with the folding hardtop stored in the trunk. RWD, 7-SPEED AUTOMATIC sure electronically, to replicate the sensation
WEIGHT 3900 LB
Sitting behind the long hood, you face a slick, of winding out a naturally aspirated engine.
0–62 MPH 3.5 SEC
center-mounted touchscreen. There are TOP SPEED 199 MPH (EST) In lower gears, the V-8 delivers a noticeable
seats for four, but have a doctor and gurney ON SALE NOW kick beyond 4500 rpm that encourages you to
chase the 7500-rpm redline. But there’s more
torque—and a progressively flatter curve—in
the upper three ratios. That lets Ferrari run
tall, fuel-eicient gearing. It also means you
can tackle uphill freeway sections without
having to get overly busy with the downshift
paddle. Turbo lag is there if you look for it, but
only then. The sensation is of a big, naturally
aspirated V-8.
The sound isn’t quite there—you’re still
left hankering for some high notes. But the
tone varies more this time around, with less
emphasis on bass. And because the exhaust
butterflies now ofer the precise control of
electronic actuation, there’s less of the annoy-
ing on/of boominess of older Ferraris. Creep-
ing up in speed by 1 mph in the ebb and flow
of freeway traic no longer elicits a sound
like an old lighthouse foghorn—eeehhhh-
OHHHHHHHH.
The Portofino is the second front-engined
Ferrari, following the 812 Superfast, to get
electric power steering. It doesn’t tingle your
fingers with old-school surface feedback, but
it’s responsive, accurate, and connected in a
hyperclean way. The message the wheel relays

72 JUNE 2018
from the front tires is, in any event, reassuring. There’s plenty
of grip. Sharper body control puts the Portofino somewhere
between the base model and the Handling Speciale package
version of the outgoing California T. A sportier suspension
option for the new car seems inevitable, but we can’t imagine
most buyers wanting more aggressive tuning, given the trade-
of in comfort.
In fact, it’s the lack of trade-ofs that makes this such an
appealing Ferrari. Sure, we’d pick a 488 to rip down a twisty
road, but that would be missing the point. Even looking past
the fact that the 488 costs almost $31,000 more, the Califor-
nia’s sales success proves there are plenty of drivers out there—
people who might otherwise have bought a Bentley Continen-
tal GT or a high-end Mercedes-AMG—who find a car like this
a lot more alluring, more enjoyable, FERRARI’S DRIVER FOCUS
EXTENDS EVEN TO THE
and less intimidating than a mid- TOUCHSCREEN, WITH
engine wedge that looks like it just KNOBS SKEWED TO THE
LEFT OF THE CONSOLE.
left parc ferme at Le Mans.
For those drivers, the Portofino
should make for an even easier choice than its predecessor. It
looks and goes better than the California ever did. It feels sui-
ciently convincing as a Ferrari that won’t make you flinch when
pressed specifically about which Ferrari your pony-branded
key fob belongs to. And it does all this without compromising
the usability and friendly character that helped make the Cali-
fornia the best-selling Prancing Horse product ever.
We have a hunch Enzo would have left the Peugeot keys on
the hook if he’d had a Portofino in the driveway. ■
R OA DA N D T R AC K . C O M 73
 T HE F IR S T DR I V E | 2 0 18 T OYO TA CA MR Y
BEIGE BUSTER
RIP-SNORTING GRILLE, RAKISH BODY, AND A 301-HORSE V-6.
THIS AIN’T YOUR MOM’S CAMRY.
VERYONE HAS HAD A TOYOTA CAMRY
in their life. You’ve passed one; you’ve
E sat in one; you’ve owned one; you’ve
opened your door into one. Statisti-
cally, it was silver.
Ten million Camrys have coasted
onto American highways. They say
familiarity breeds contempt, but the
truth is that these mid-size Japanese sedans are too ubiquitous
even for that. They’re invisible. I had a Camry in my youth. It
wasn’t silver. It was beige. I think.
However, the Camry went away for the summer and came
back with a sweet tan. There’s a new, stifer architecture and
three new engines. (Baby Bear: 203- to 206-hp, 2.5-liter
four-cylinder. Mama Bear: 208-hp, 2.5-liter four-cylinder/
electric hybrid. Papa Bear: 301-hp, 3.5-liter V-6.) It’s longer.
One inch lower. You can order a panoramic glass roof. The
74 JUNE 2018
sport grades include a spoiler lip, which is how you know
things are getting serious.
The day the 301-hp XSE arrived on my doorstep was a fine,
sunny driving day, ripe for revving engines and rabbiting
pulses. I wasn’t particularly expecting a Camry to rouse my
limbic system—one does not squeeze an orange and hope for
apple juice.
Then I noticed the leather. The seats were Tarantino red, so
bright, I can’t stop remembering their redness. As far as short-
cuts to emotion go, it’s not bad. You might not feel good about
that color, but you’re gonna feel something.
“I couldn’t help but notice,” my postman observed, “that the
seats of your new car are very red.” Later, my brother com-
mented, “This is the ugliest interior I’ve seen in a long time.”
I liked the red. It was like a scream in a dentist’s oice.
Everyone should be able to appreciate how substantial the
new interior is. Unlike the previous Camry, which came of like
 hard acceleration, the wheel jerked in my hands as traction
control cut power unpredictably. When the needle crept up
rounding Blue Ridge hairpins, the 19-inch tires gave up stick-
ing and took up wailing and rending garments.
Those 301 rumbly horses were marvelous, but it
TOYOTA CAMRY was easy to outrun the brakes with them. Both
XSE V-6 the pedal feel and steering were too pillowy to
PRICE $35,845
encourage any dreams of track days. Woman,
POWERTRAIN thy name is understeer. Sportier than its par-
3.5-LITER V-6, 301 HP,
267 LB-FT; FWD,
ents? Yes. But the XSE lands at $35,845 (nearly
8-SPEED AUTOMATIC $40,000 fully loaded), which makes its clos-
WEIGHT 3600 LB
est true competitor not the Nissan Altima, but
0–60 MPH 5.8 SEC
TOP SPEED 130 MPH the Audi A4 or the BMW 320i. Both ofer more
ON SALE NOW assured driving experiences.

But let’s be real: The Camry doesn’t have to perform better

the anonymous rental car it often was, this cabin looked like
it was actually designed. Attention to detail, like stitching on
the dash, suggested luxury. “Someone,” the Camry murmured,
“gave a damn about me.”
I took to Virginia back roads to see if its performance mettle
matched those audacious seats. Okay, look—it was surprisingly
fun. Whereas much of the segment has ditched the six-cylinder
in favor of turbo fours, Toyota has reengineered it, making it
more powerful than ever: 301 hp at 6600 rpm. There’s also a
new eight-speed automatic. Use the steering-wheel paddle to
drop a gear, and there’s an audible grumble.
The chassis has been beefed up along with the engine. The
body is 30 percent stifer, Toyota says, and the rear suspension
has traded struts for a more sophisticated double-wishbone
setup. The Camry clung to back roads with startling athleti-
cism, staying reasonably flat even under duress.
However, this is still a big, front-wheel-drive sedan. Under
than a BMW. It has to perform better than the old Camry and,
just as important, the crossovers that have been devouring its
market share of late. And it does that. Easily.
Moreover, flawless performance isn’t what generates
emotion. Specificity of experience does. Creating an object
that serves as a mirror for its owner: the cultish Beetle, Out-
back, or Jeep. These cars say something about their owners. A
Jeep waves at another Jeep. “Such a Miata person,” one says,
and we nod with understanding.
What does it mean to be a Camry person? The car still stands
for practicality, safety, and value: a head-up display and a suite
of semiautonomous safety features (like automatic braking)
come standard on the XSE, as does a trunk large enough for
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R OA DA N D T R AC K . C O M 75
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THE PA S S I O N 82 | DRIV E R ’ S E D 90 | GE A R SE L E C T IO N 94

PERFECTLY IMPERFECT
THE METICULOUS ARTWORK
OF UNIQUE & LIMITED.

R OA DA N D T R AC K . C O M 81
 T H E PA S S I O N
UNCANNY SPEED
TO CAPTURE RACING’S PAST, UNIQUE & LIMITED RE-CREATES IT.
an Rambousek inally found the moment: Ayrton Senna’s McLaren
MP4/4, screaming down the back straight at Imola, passing Nelson
Piquet in a lash through the Alta curves.
The year was 1988. Piquet, then Formula 1’s reigning champion, had a
front-row seat to history. Those seconds at the San Marino Grand Prix,
where his third-place Lotus was lapped by Senna’s McLaren, foreshadowed one of the
most dominant seasons in F1 history. Just one prob-
lem: Few saw the pass, and even fewer documented it.
“There’s not a lot of pictures, and there’s just one Unique & Limited
PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
really sh**ty YouTube video capturing the moment,”
says Rambousek, founder of Unique & Limited, an OPENED 2012 | STAFF 9
art studio in Prague. “We talked to the people at SPECIALTY RE-CREATING
HISTORIC MOMENTS IN
McLaren, to Senna’s main mechanic, and we were not MOTORSPORT AS ARTWORK
82 JUNE 2018
able to identify the exact place the pass
happened.”
Driven by the challenge of recap-
turing motorsport’s bygone zeniths in
high detail, Rambousek and his design
partner, Petr Milerski, left their jobs in
advertising to pursue the passion proj-
ect that is Unique & Limited. The images
they create blend traditional photogra-
phy with hyperdetailed 3-D renderings
to explore an old moment from unseen
angles. The inal product is dreamlike,
straddling an uncanny valley between
photorealism and fantasy, as if painted
by a gearhead Norman Rockwell. Each
picture is printed in large format and in
limited number, commissioned by man-
ufacturers or simply sprung from ideas in
Rambousek’s head and sold to clients.
With the San Marino Senna project,
it was McLaren who approached Ram-
bousek with cause to celebrate: 2018
marks anniversaries for the marque’s
1988, 1998, and 2008 F1 drivers’ champi-
onships. Rambousek and McLaren whit-
tled down potential milestones to arrive
at that moment in 1988.
“It turns out quite well with Senna
because of the composition and the
angle, because it’s not something you see
with pictures from the era, even though
there’s hundreds of photos from the race
itself,” Rambousek says.
With the “hero car”—one of the most
successful ever to compete in F1—and its
heroic moment chosen, Rambousek and
Milerski set about collecting period refer-
ences of the MP4/4 at Imola. They sifted
through photos, videos, race reports, and
their own conversations with McLaren
staf to pinpoint the car’s precise position
on-track. Imola’s layout has changed over
the years, further complicating things.
The MP4/4’s bones, and the track
around it, were built from the reams of
research. Here’s where the magic starts
to happen. Proprietary software selects
the same point on multiple photos—
say, a sponsor sticker or the wheel of a
car—and uses it as a reference point to
stitch together an accurate model of the
MP4/4, bringing the McLaren into three
dimensions. Milerski tweaks the digital
model throughout the process. Visually,
the results are like the hand-sculpted
DETAILS, DETAILS, DETAILS. RAMBOUSEK CAPTURES
BRUNO SENNA’S FACE (ABOVE) TO RE-CREATE HIS
UNCLE AYRTON’S INFAMOUS GAZE.
clay models automakers use to prototype
cars—all faceless shapes and smooth,
broad edges. And the process is just as
painstaking: The initial form takes Mil-
erski up to eight weeks.
The Senna project in particular
demanded an extra level of detail. “The
car is basically covering the entire pic-
ture,” Rambousek explains, whereas
every other print in the irm’s catalog fea-
tures the car at a further distance. “This
was trickier in terms of the texturing and
rendering, because it’s so large.”
Fortunately, Unique & Limited had
special access to the MP4/4 at the
McLaren Technology Center. The team
shot thousands of photos of the car for
reference.
R OA DA N D T R AC K . C O M 83
TOP: BLUEPRINTS AND SOFTWARE COMBINE TO CREATE A 3-D BASE.
ABOVE: A BASIC “CLAY” MODEL IS CREATED; TEXTURE AND COLOR ARE ADDED.
TOP RIGHT: SENNA’S TORSO, GRIMY GLOVES AND ALL.
“We sent the model to McLaren for
the inal checks,” Rambousek says.
“They sent it to [McLaren designer] Neil
Oatley, who found a few mistakes on the
bolts and wheels of the car, which you
can’t even see.”
The fussing continued. Digital lay-
ers of texture and grime were added.
Bolts were weathered, as if clashed with
virtual wrenches. A 3-D model of Sen-
na’s torso was created, down to the torn
threads on his driving gloves.
The obsessiveness becomes more evi-
dent in the way Rambousek and team
anchor their virtual work in reality. In
a diferent photo shoot, set in an Italian
village, fans lining cobbled streets were
actors on location, dressed in period
garb. In another, a ire hose created pud-
dles and mist. Each of these scenes was
captured in detailed photos and layered
into digital images.
For the McLaren project, Ayrton’s
nephew, Bruno Senna, sat on a stool in
84 JUNE 2018
Unique & Limited’s Prague studio. His face
was lit to re-create the bright Italian sun,
then photographed to capture a hallmark
It’s a quest to create
something new, to
tell stories in a way
never before seen.
of F1’s turbo era: His uncle Ayrton’s fero-
cious gaze. Bruno’s eyes were then digi-
tally placed inside Ayrton’s Day-Glo hel-
met—a haunting, perfect match.
The cinematic quality and real-life-
or-fantasy vibe of U&L’s work are due
in part to Isabell Mayrhofer. The third
member of Unique & Limited’s creative
triumvirate, she previously was a casting
agent and producer for ilms and com-
mercials. Melding reality, photography,
fantasy, and cinema is tricky, she says,
noting that it’s tempting to lean more
toward fantasy or reality for the sake of
convenience. So why make the efort?
“We ask ourselves that question every
day,” Mayrhofer laughs.
It’s a quest to create something new
from limited resources, such as black-
and-white images of Mercedes-Benz
Silver Arrows, cars seldom captured on
ilm. “We decided to tell stories in a way
never seen before,” Milerski says.
For Rambousek, it’s about the chal-
lenge. Of creating the most accurate his-
toric models that don’t exist in reality. Of
pursuing beauty as an end unto itself. Of
pushing into undiscovered territory for
its own sake, he says.
“The creation process is some kind of
signature for what we do, so that’s the
reason we should stick with it,” he says.
“If we have a guy who wants his 911, a
road-legal car you can take into the street
and shoot, then that’s not really a project
for us. Anyone else can do that.”
—KYLE KINARD
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 DRIVER’S ED

SO YOU WANT
AN OLD CAR
DON’T BE FOOLED BY THE ROMANCE. THE DOWNSIDES ARE MANY, BUT SO ARE THE REWARDS.

he plain truth of classic for stop signs years before you’d touch modiications. Most can be operated by

T cars is that many simply

feel old—not charming
or kookily vintage, just
the brakes in a “normal” car. You’ll learn
to skate around on skinny cross-ply tires
with the grip of iced butter, drifting in a
anyone who can start a new Toyota. With
proper maintenance and regular exercise,
few cars of this era need constant atten-
ancient and unresolved. single lane—not always on purpose—20 tion just to keep running.
Many people buy their irst classic based mph below the speed limit. You’ll know The middle ground lies in the years
on looks, then become disenchanted the joy of unpowered steering that shouts between. Most Forties cars were little
when the drive doesn’t mirror the song the road into your palms, but also the more than prewar carryovers, low-cost
of the sheetmetal. If you’re considering happy terrors of barely located solid axles stopgaps to get carmakers and drivers
bringing a classic car into your life, and
you actually want to drive that sucker
instead of just watching it appreciate/
depreciate/leak all over your garage loor,
spare yourself the inevitable anguish and
empty bank account by irst considering
two key questions.

1. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO WITH IT?

Vintage cars are like a marriage—life
with one is a give-and-take, where it pays
to be honest. Ask yourself why you want
old wheels in the irst place: The joy of
a simple machine for back-road jaunts?
Sunday ice-cream cruises? Commuting
or long road-trip adventures?
The key is matching your expectations
to the hardware. Generally speaking, old
cars are less technically proicient than
modern cars, but they have fewer ilters
between you and the road. The older the
machine, the slower, more agricultural,
and more direct it’s likely to be. Go back
in time far enough, you’ll ind transmis-
sions that won’t let you leave your drive- and drum brakes that can fade when you back in the game. By the Fifties, how-
way without practice (unsynchronized need them most. ever, the engineering world had been
“crash” gearboxes, mostly from before In short bursts, this stuf can be fully converted from warmaking. With
World War II), stagecoach suspension, exhilarating. It can also be exhausting. the right car, that decade can be a happy
and rod-operated brakes that verge on This is partly why cars from the dawn of medium—a taste of the performance the
suicidal in modern traffic. the automobile are relatively afordable, Sixties became known for, with some
None of which is to knock that life. If and why people gravitate to classics from of the raw, built-by-a-blacksmith edge
you want a high-efort weekend chess the Sixties and Seventies, when the indus- of the prewar era. You still get the slides
exercise that will feel like a break from try was evolving rapidly and still rela- and terrible brakes, but most Fifties cars
M AT T T I E R N E Y

the modern world, go ancient. Buy a
wood-bodied prewar dervish like a 1930s
MG or an old Ford or Austin special.
You’ll get outdragged at stoplights by
indiferently driven minivans and set up
tively uninluenced by safety regulations.
Cars from those decades remain simple
enough to feel direct and engaging, but
they’re also relatively durable. They han-
dle decently or can be made to with minor
are resolved enough to not feel like auto-
motive hair shirts. Traffic will require
patience and planning, but your heart
won’t spend as much time in your throat,
and cross-country trips will feel like

90 JUNE 2018
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attainable adventure, not an expedition
to the moon.
Or maybe you want a car that feels
relatively vintage but gives zero com-
promises in normal life. By the Eight-
ies and early Nineties, Japan, Germany,
and Detroit were all building reliable,
comfortable, and durable machines that
could rip down a highway at extralegal
speed. Much of the fun, fast stuf built in
that era is now common on the used mar-
ket, and it’s largely overlooked by collec-
tors. Next to heavy, complex modern
iron, even an Eighties Honda Civic—with
its manual gearbox, airy cockpit, and
curb weight under 2500 pounds—can be
an eye-opening giggle, and for remark-
ably low buy-in.
2. WHAT’S YOUR APPETITE FOR QUIRK?
Call it the stuf that a new car doesn’t
make you think about. It could be
safety—that deeply personal examina-
tion of acceptable risk. (My friend Greg
Long thinks that every child should grow
up around a Citroën 2CV, a car with all
Now the most trusted place for
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the crash protection of a fat motorcy-
cle. It should go without saying that not
everyone is like Greg.) Or maybe it’s just
a niggle that gets in the way of regular
It’s one thing to trot out a car on warm
Sundays only. But long relationships
are their own kind of sublime joy.
That means miles on the clock.
use. Maybe you live in Seattle and want
to tackle your commute with an early, air-
cooled Volkswagen Beetle. The wipers on
a Beetle are little more than prayer for a
break in the clouds, and the car’s defrost
system is about as efective as a breeze
over a lit match. All of which will give you
one more reason to leave the thing on a
battery tender during the months where
your city is rained upon nonstop.
The basic rule: It’s one thing to trot
out a car like a show pony, warm Sun-
days only. Even sloppy engineering and
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murderous road manners can be fun for
a few hours. (Trust me: I once owned a
Renault Le Car.) But long relationships
are their own kind of sublime joy, and
with cars, that means miles on the clock.
The next step is to get educated. Think
long and hard about your taste. Pore
through Craigslist and Bring a Trailer.
Read. Go to your local Cars and Cofee,
ind an old car you love, and ask the owner
what it’s like to live with. And remember:
Don’t buy a vintage car as a static invest-
ment—buy it because you like it.
An undriven car is basically furniture.
Which is all well and good for some peo-
ple, but then, you’re not reading Recliner
& Throw Pillow, are you? — S A M S M I T H
 1966 Ford GT-40 Mark II
50th Anniversary Die-Cast Tribute
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 G E A R S E LE C T I O N

THROWBACKS
hanneling the past while staying in the present is hard to get right. Just ask Volkswagen about

C the New Beetle. But groovy things are happening in the watch world. Namely, cribbing vintage
aesthetics and executing automotive tie-ins with style. The watches above do both. TAG Heuer’s
Monaco (center) is motorsport’s most iconic watch, partly for gracing Steve McQueen’s wrist, but
mostly because legends like Mario Andretti, Jochen Rindt, and Clay Regazzoni wore Heuers.
This variant, the Calibre 11 Gulf Special Edition ($5900), features the blue-and-orange stripes of Gulf Oil’s racing
livery, which adorned the Le Mans–winning Ford GT40 50 years ago. In a similar vein, the blue-and-white dial
on Autodromo’s Ford GT Endurance Chronograph (left, $695) recalls Le Mans glory, with a foot firmly in the
present; the watch is licensed by Ford as a companion to the new GT. If splashes of color aren’t your speed, check
out Tudor. The Heritage Black Bay Chrono (right, $4725) retains a modern size but picks up vintage cues from
M AT T T I E R N E Y

Tudor and Rolex’s archives, like snowflake-shaped hands and old-school chronograph pushers. All are proof that
past and present can live in design harmony. Automakers take note.

94 JUNE 2018
 PROMOTION

JUNE 1 – 3, 2018
ROGER SHERMAN BALDWIN PARK,
GREENWICH, CT

Recognized as one of the premier classic car shows in the United States,
the Greenwich Concours d’Elegance will celebrate its 23rd year on
June 1-3, 2018. The event takes place at the Roger Sherman Baldwin Park
overlooking the harbor in Greenwich, CT.

The production and race cars built in the 1950s

by American racing icon, Briggs Cunningham will be featured.

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO PURCHASE TICKETS, PLEASE VISIT:

WWW.GREENWICHCONCOURS.COM
 ASK BOB | BY BOB LUTZ

The $100,000
Meanwhile, Impala and Taurus sedans lan-
guish on dealer lots as F-150s, Silverados,
and Ram pickups fly of them.

Pickup Full-size SUVs, large crossovers, anything

WHAT’S BEHIND SKY-HIGH VEHICLE PRICING?
TOP-TRIM DIESEL DUALIE PICKUP will push
high and with all-wheel drive is hot. Car
companies need to remain solvent, so they
adapt: “If we lose money on those, we’ll com-
pensate by pricing more on these.” And the
public, so far, accepts it.
American car buyers are not price sensi-
tive; they are monthly payment sensitive, and it doesn’t matter

A the $100,000 barrier today. A Cadillac Esca-

lade or Lincoln Navigator will crack it. Stuf
of fantasy a few years ago. I own a 2008 GMC
Denali with everything. I still have the sticker: before it’s paid of, and the customer has negative equity for
$48,000 and change.
Fast-forward to 2015, when I bought a new GMC Yukon
XL Denali for a bit over $70,000. New Tahoes can be close to
$70,000 now, Yukons even more. What is
happening here? Is it just too much? Will
customers revolt? What are manufactur-
ers thinking?
Truth is that pricing has been skewed
to the products the public wants. Product
planners have to marry two totally dif-
ferent portfolios: The first is a lineup that
will trigger lust in the buying public. The
second has to meet increasingly stringent
fuel-economy regulations and electric-
vehicle mandates.
EVs and hybrids, despite breathless,
unrelenting media hype, are not in great demand. Every
American thinks their neighbor should buy one. But sadly,
these must be sold, and in suicient quantity to satisfy the
government. That means low prices, low lease rates, and, in
almost all cases, losses for the manufacturer.
The big companies have also wasted enormous sums of cap-
ital on fuel-average-enabling small cars, like the Ford Fiesta
and the Chevrolet Sonic and Spark. They sell below cost and,
after a few years of generating losses, are left to die—if the
mandates can be fulfilled without selling them in volume.
how many years their loans go. As a result, financing periods
have evolved from the old 36-month norm to 48 months, then
60 months, and recently 84 months. The car will be worn out
almost the whole financing period.
Leasing is another way out. A lease is essentially a customer
covering a vehicle’s depreciation while driving it. A vehicle
that is sought after depreciates less than a
wallflower. Thus, the seemingly insane sit-
THE BIG COMPANIES
uation where a slow-selling luxury sedan
can have a much higher monthly lease rate
HAVE WASTED
than far more expensive full-size pickups
ENORMOUS SUMS
or SUVs, which enjoy great demand as
two- or three-year-old, of-lease vehicles.
OF CAPITAL ON FUEL-
Most manufacturers manipulate lease
AVERAGE-ENABLING
rates by absorbing the diference between
the calculated residual value and the lower
SMALL CARS.
real-world one. It’s a hidden incentive
called “subsidized lease,” and it accounts
for a lot of sales.
So, “list price” isn’t really that, and “lease rates” that
cover depreciation usually aren’t that, either. Loading pric-
ing on hot vehicles while losing money on the less desirable
is becoming a ubiquitous yet dangerous practice. It’s bound
to continue until governments adopt fuel-economy and CO2
regulations that are less at odds with how consumers select
their next ride. ■
Bob Lutz has been The Man at several car companies.
Ask him about cars, the auto industry, or life in general.

Road & Track® (ISSN 0035-7189), (USPS 570-670) VOL. 69, NO. 9, June 2018, is published monthly, with combined issues in December/January and March/April, 10 times per year, by Hearst Communications, Inc., 300 West 57th Street,
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