The Garage

The beauty of Porsche at Sebring

Gary Grant — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 14:45:26 +0000

Our videographer friend JF Musial has outdone himself yet again. He has just completed this stunning video from practice sessions for today’s 12 hour race at Sebring. In this short we see the Flying Lizard team in action and follow Hans Hermann as he takes a lap in his Porsche RS60, the same car he raced to win at Sebring in 1960.

Coverage of the ALMS 12 hours in on Speed TV today at 10 am est and then from 2 pm until 11 pm.

Porsche ranks #1 in JD Power dependability study

Gary Grant — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:43:25 +0000

Over the years here in The Garage, we’ve been lucky to have become friends with a number of people who have been rather involved with the sport of underground cross country rallying. In each case, these folks choose to race German cars exclusively. With one rather notorious exception, the brand of choice is always Porsche. Why? Because they run like a tank. In fact, it seems to be a pretty common joke amongst the Porsche drivers that whenever they see an Italian sports car on the route it is broken down on the side of the road or sitting atop a flatbed.

It should come as no surprise then that JD Power’s latest dependability study names Porsche as the number one brand for vehicle reliability. The JD Power rankings are perhaps the most important quality reports for a car manufacturer in the US market, obviously the largest market in the world. The irony is that the consumers who know this best are the ones who actually use their Porsches for what they were meant for: driving fast!

As an aside, even that rather notorious exception now has a Porsche racing under the team colors!

Cool new tech from The General

Gary Grant — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:22:20 +0000

Those who were around when General Motors began using their very first generation Heads Up Display will recall that many people called it the way of the future. Fighter jet technology being used to make driving safer. The reality was that it wasn’t as good as many hoped it would be and many drivers hated the system. I recall driving a Caddy of some sort that had it and I thought it was rather useless.

Fast forward 25 years or so and GM is still working on visual technology. Now however, the tech has grown in leaps and bounds and looks seriously cool. Engineers are working on an augmented reality windshield that uses a series of cameras to highlight road signs, the edge of the road and even animals. The system even has the ability to display GPS details in the driver’s line of sight. I’m a bit skeptical about the use of external cameras as the ones I’ve seen used for lane departure type systems seem to be baffled by snow and rain drops. If they can find a way to make the cameras work in bad weather, this might indeed revolutionize driver safety in poor visibility.

GM Video after the break via Mashable

Corvette Racing Series: Episode 1

Gary Grant — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:02:57 +0000

A couple of weeks ago we showed you a nicely produced propaganda piece from Corvette Racing that was more or less developed to justify their existence to the naysayers. Today, we have the first of 12 videos following the team through the 2010 racing season. This one is equally well produced and actually has a bit more meat to it.

As teams are getting ready for qualifying at the 12 Hours of Sebring today, you can be sure that the Vette people have the cameras rolling non-stop. It will be very interesting to see how the Vette’s perform in GT2 this weekend against the beefed up competition.

Episode 1 after the break

Grand Tourismo Nights Trailer

Gary Grant — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:38:18 +0000

I have to admit that I am not much of a game geek. In fact, we bought the kids a PS3 for Christmas this year and I still haven’t played a single game! That’s because I am patiently waiting for the release of Grand Tourismo 5, which promises to be the best car game ever created. The graphics and car dynamics have gotten so realistic that it just has to be incredible.

The latest I’ve heard from the geeks at the local EBgames is that GT5 is supposed to hit the shelves next week. It has been a while without any fresh buzz, so the folks at Sony have released another trailer for the game. This time we see some of the night time action. I’m not too into the street racing bits, but the DTM cars and NASCAR cars look pretty realistic.

Check out the trailer after the break

GT5 Nights Trailer

Things I like today

Gary Grant — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:20:27 +0000

Just a few things I’ve noticed today that turned my crank:

Ok, so call me color blind (which I am) but this combo is just too cool! Years ago, friend of The Garage, Racer Nika, had this cool Suzuki Swift GT with 5 spoke wheels that were dayglo orange. I coveted them for our rally car. Fortunately, I don’t have a dishonest bone in my body, so Nika never came out of the house to find her wheels missing!

These nasty green rims are just plain old wicked! Thanks for the Auto Insider Blog for causing me to ogle a Civic.

Auto123 reports that Kia is releasing an R version of their Forte Koup pocket rocket. I absolutely love the base car and it screams out for more performance goodies. Kia has added in the basics of performance tuning. Make it breath better and stiffen it up! Hopefully the Eibach springs, strut tower brace and stickier tires will cure the over protective understeer habit.

BMW CEO says a new front wheel drive car is being developed.

Call me crazy, but I think BMW was way off the mark when they created the 1 series. Don’t get me wrong, it is a fabulous car to drive and is a hoot to drive but it was touted as the next coming of the 2002. A big part of what made the 2002 a success was that it was affordable. A base 1 series in Canada will set you back just shy of 34 grand. This is not an affordable sports car. Perhaps BMW realizes that, as they have announced that a new front wheel drive car is coming soon. It is said that this new model will be slotted below the 1 and will share its platform with the next generation MINI. Maybe this time they’ll get it right from a pricing standpoint.

Random thoughts on racing

Leighton Irwin — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:22:51 +0000

Bahrain GP = Boring.

I watched the TSN feed from the BBC and two things stuck me. Now, I am slightly(?) deaf from too many years around too many race cars and with the engine noise I had trouble making out the commentary. The second is how much TSN shortchanges us. There is a 5 minute feed in only. The driver interviews were cut off so TSN could go to a bunch of talking head stick and ball ‘experts’. I did watch part of the repeat on Speed in the afternoon and you could hear the commentary clearly and to me their coverage was superior. Speed are, of course, doing their commentary from a studio in Charlotte. The race was so boring I did not watch all of the Speed repeat as I usually do. TSN’s use of split screen for commercials is nice.

The difficulty in passing shows that the much vaunted ‘working group’ on altering the areo to enhance passing failed miserably. Mind you the drivers nearer the back seemed able to do it! Already there are moves afoot to tinker with the rules supposedly to liven things up. It just might be a good idea to wait a few races to see what happens rather than having a knee jerk reaction. The main idea being proposed is a second mandatory pit stop to change tires. Big deal.
Rather than that it would make more sense, at least to me, to remove the mandatory tire change and compound rule. I cannot remember whether Bridgestone have 3 or 4 different compounds available for the year. Whichever, all compounds could be brought to each race instead of the current two. As the teams are allowed 11 sets of tires per car for a weekend each team would have to advise Bridgestone well in advance how many sets of each compound they would want. That way Bridgestone would not have to bring any more tires than they do now. Now the teams could run any combo they wanted. They would have to start the race on the compound they qualified on. Some teams might go for super soft to get a better grid position. Some might go for hard, giving up grid position, but planning on running the race without stopping. Teams might split their tire strategy between drivers. More likely to produce interesting races than artificial tire stops.

As an aside there seemed to be an awful lot of empty seats in the grandstands, not that Bernie cares.

On to the Indy Car race. I did not see it as I won’t pay Ma Bell a fortune to get TSN2 and a bunch of channels I don’t want. I have read several reports on the race and several forums. There were several glitches, especially the pavement on the main straight being so slippery the cars were hard to control. Qualifying had to be put off until race morning while the concrete was ground. Then they did not clean up the resulting concrete dust. This apparently contributed to the first corner accident. The TV coverage provided by Brazilian TV evidently was not very good. Despite this I understand it was one heck of a race. Tags qualified second and was running near the front until he got tagged (ouch) by Dan Wheldon and pushed into Tony Kannan. A great win by Will Power for Roger Penske.

There were a record 4 women in the race but thankfully Milka Duno was out before she created havoc. Simona de Silvestra actually led and ran up front until car trouble dropped her three laps down. Ana Beatrix ran well and kept her nose clean. Danica ended up behind her one lap down after a couple of spins, one under a yellow. A rain storm caused a red flag as the track flooded and timing and scoring went out as well.

Indy Car have a reverse gear this year in an effort to avoid so many full course yellows. It has not been too successful as most drivers are left foot brakers and by the time they get off the brakes and onto the clutch in a spin the engine has stalled. They need to either have an anti stall set up a la F1 and/or a steering wheel mounted paddle clutch, again like F1. After all they are using paddle shifters.

As an aside when I was talking to Bruce Jensen at the ALMS race at Mosport he told me that most of the young drivers today do not know how to drive a standard as all they have used are the sequential boxes and automatics on the road. I remember all to well that if you missed a shift with a Hewland the biggest problem was to get it back into gear, any gear!

On the good news front Sarah Fisher has decide to step down for a couple of road races and put Graham Rahal in the seat. Sarah is the first to admit she is not very good on road or street courses. She also is planning on eventually becoming a team owner and not driving. There is a strong rumour Graham will be driving for Chip Ganassi at Indy and maybe thereafter.

Quite amazing how many Indy Car owners are former drivers. Dale Coyne, Michael Andretti, Jimmy Vasser, Chip Ganassi and former owner Bobby Rahal. Even Roger Penske was a former racer although not at Indy. Not only did he drive at Mosport but he drove at Harewood Acres as did Bobby Rahal.

In the World of Outlaws the King, Steve Kinser, is in 3rd place in the standings 2 points out of second. He won his first WOO crown in 78 and has over 750 A main WOO wins and 20 titles. He has already won this year.

I noted on the CASC forum a poster suggested that the runways at Edenvale be torn up and a complete new track built. I must assume he did not read the story as Edenvale is first and foremost an operating airfield and car racing is very much secondary.

Well thats enough BS for now!

Ed note: Gary Grant caught Will Power’s eye at the Steelback Grand Prix in Toronto in 2007

Armor All answers the prayers of Euro car owners with new Wheel Protectant

Gary Grant — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:34:57 +0000

Regular readers may know that I am the community host at Armor All’s Owner Center. Or they might not. As these are two totally separate projects, it isn’t something I’ve mentioned here more than once or twice. Armor All’s most recent product launch is so fantastic that I have to make an exception and tell you about their new Wheel Protectant.

Over my years in the car industry I’ve seen many new car care products come and go. Many of them were revolutionary from a chemical standpoint, but while they cranked up the lab technicians, they often didn’t make all that big a difference to the end user. You & I still had to work just as hard to keep our ride clean.

Armor All’s Wheel Protectant is different. I have yet to meet an owner of a European car that hasn’t asked me what is the best method of removing brake dust from their wheels. To be truthful, the best method would have to include not having any to begin with. This is where this new product comes in.

Simple stuff really: Wash wheels, dry wheels, spray on wheel protectant. For roughly 4 weeks, your wheels will stay spotlessly clean. Brake dust and road junk quite literally does not stick for up to 4 weeks!

I’ve seen this at work in a lab and it is pretty impressive stuff. Tomorrow I’m going to apply it to one wheel on our test car this week and see how it works in the real world. For now though, check out this fun video that the folks at Armor All have put together. The stuff really is just as impressive as it looks in the video.

Review: 2010 Volkswagen Golf

Tom Williams — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:32:28 +0000

The Volkswagen Golf is the best selling VW of all time. But looking at the streets and highways of America, a lot of people would question the truth of that statement, and for good reason-in 2009, Rabbit/Golf sales made up a miniscule 3.5% of all Volkswagen sales in the US. For whatever reason, the American buying public continues to struggle to fully embrace the hatchback. The proof is in the numbers: last year, the Jetta outsold the Rabbit/Golf by a margin of 14:1!

Which is a shame. During my week with the Golf, I became quite fond of the car. But then again, why wouldn’t I? The Golf-based GTI I reviewed in January was a revelation in four-wheel fun. With most of the automotive press giving all their attention to the GTI, a basic, but very important point seems to be lost: the GTI wouldn’t be a great car if the Golf itself wasn’t great.

This is the new Mark VI Golf, which is a little misleading. Mechanically, the Golf is carryover from last year’s Rabbit, but the sheetmetal and interior are new. VW wisely brought back the Golf name, after briefly dredging up the Rabbit name (not used here since 1984). Our test car, finished in Candy White, definitely showcased the Golf’s simple, clean design. This is a no-fuss car, but the integrated turn signals in the sideview mirrors was a nice touch.

The interior of the Golf is particularly impressive. America’s misconception of hatchbacks as “cheap transportation” would be shattered after sitting inside a Golf. For build quality, refinement, and use of rich looking and feeling materials, the Golf is in a class by itself, and no competitor comes close. On the center console, that isn’t plastic painted to look like metal-it’s metal. The seats were comfortable, and I was pleasantly surprised to see such sporty, well-bolstered seats in a “base” VW. Most controls are simple and intuitive, but the tiny, hard to read displays for the climate control knobs were a constant source of frustration. Also, a center armrest would have been appreciated on longer trips. Finally, the Golf offers no covered storage except the glovebox, a worry for iPods, phones, etc.

Motivation for our Golf comes from the familiar 2.5L inline five cylinder, which is good for 170hp. On four door gas-powered Golfs, a six-speed automatic is the only transmission available (a manual is available in the two-door). Even so, VW promises 0-60mph in 7.8 seconds, which was once considered sports car territory not too long ago. Under hard acceleration, the five cylinder pulls nicely, and sounds vaguely like the old Audi five’s of the past, but better. Braking and steering are at the top of the class. VW’s reputation as an involved, sporty car is fully represented in the Golf. Yet on the highway, the Golf is remarkably quiet. Driving in a steady rain at speed, the Golf exhibited the quiet and composure you would expect in a car costing twice as much. Dynamically, the Golf is very tough to beat, and impresses you the more you drive it.

VW elected to forgo trim levels with the Golf, and offers the car with two different engines instead. But it’s not quite as simple as it sounds. Our gas-powered Golf came well equipped, with power windows, locks, mirrors, cruise control, trip computer, a decent stereo and electronic stability control. But the TDI (diesel) adds goodies like leather accents, sport suspension and a touchscreen stereo, which aren’t available on the gas car. Want xenon headlights, navigation and satellite radio? Sorry, TDI only. In a country where diesel fuel isn’t always just an exit away, I can easily see where prospective Golf shoppers desiring TDI-only features would cross it off their shopping list. Or just get a Jetta.

Finally, there is the matter of price. Our Golf, whose sole option was the Cold Weather Package, rang in at $20,165USD. At twenty grand, most buyers expect a leather wrapped steering wheel, and not puny 15″ steel wheels with hubcaps. For about the same money, you can buy a Mazda3 with similar power, 17″ alloys and other tidbits not included with the Golf. While the Golf is not cheap, there is no other car in its class that offers this level of quality, sport, and refinement. Viewed in this light, the Golf is actually quite a value, if not a bargain.

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Flood Watch: Infiniti

Tom Williams — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 04:10:24 +0000

I enjoy living by the beach on the Connecticut coast, but there are some trade-offs, like the beach migrating to your driveway. We were hit with some hard wind and rain over the weekend, which flooded out our street. When high tide arrives during storms such as these, it is a problem. We are equipped with an emergency P.A. system that is loud enough to wake you from a dead sleep, and the sirens came on last night, with instructions to move your cars to high ground.

It appears my neighbor down the street was not around to move his Infiniti G37S, which now has sand up to the brake calipers and exhaust pipes. You would never believe it by looking at the pic, but this car is parked on a concrete driveway.

Driven: Infiniti G37S Convertible

The Garage

The beauty of Porsche at Sebring

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Porsche ranks #1 in JD Power dependability study

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Cool new tech from The General

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Corvette Racing Series: Episode 1

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Grand Tourismo Nights Trailer

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Things I like today

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Random thoughts on racing

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Armor All answers the prayers of Euro car owners with new Wheel Protectant

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Review: 2010 Volkswagen Golf

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Flood Watch: Infiniti

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