I'm going to come right out and say this on the first paragraph of this "review": I couldn't get a read on the Ford Mark IV, and therefore am not qualified to critique it. I also didn't have a 330 P4 to test, so I can speak even less about it. This isn't a review as much as it is me rambling about my time in a Ford Mark IV, and a bit of a tangential rant near the end.
With that said, time to flush my credibility down the toilet.
It was the weirdest thing I've ever experienced in a car - I simply could not get a read on the Mk IV. At times, I would grossly overspeed into corners. Others, I vastly undersped for, all while I felt like I was braking at roughly the same points. Sometimes the tyres would bite and grip for days, and other times, they would refuse to do anything entirely. The car could go from confidence encouraging, "Yeah, of course I can do more, are you kidding?!", and go completely limp in the next instant you push it a millimetre farther. It felt like I bought a Chinese knockoff product that promised the queen of blows down below, but wound up giving me the Fat Man of blows to my face.
Wars would be started and ended by the amount of money at risk here!
Sure, I've raced and reviewed bad cars before. Hell, for the past three weeks, I've doled out three Beater verdicts, broken up only by a question mark. It'd be one thing if the car was slow and handled like sheet - everyone has the same car, and I'd usually be competitive in these one make races - the Challenger from last week was a bona fide Beater, same bias ply tyres, 7 litre V8 with a 4 speed manual... yet I finished with a podium in a few races, and actually won ONE race with it (unless Vic's modesty got the best of him and let me have one...). I hope it doesn't sound boastful, because I'm really trying to just make an objective point here.
Contrast that with how badly I did in the Mk IV: I had to brake so early I received a few surprised shunts into my rear (a ha ha ha), and no matter how far up the grid I started with reverse grids, I was dead last within a lap, most with death and injury in the process. I pushed it so hard I had a few wipeouts on my own. I couldn't understand it at all. I was driving at the car's absolute limit, tyres screeching in pain, turning as hard as I could, and others simply waltzed past me casually. It felt like me and the car were speaking different languages altogether, and we simply couldn't come to an understanding. I genuinely don't remember when was the last time I felt like such a beginner, such a chump, in a car.
Which layout of Le Sarthe is THIS?
Being utterly destrolished in this week's races proves that it really is just me not understanding and meshing with the car, and I don't know what it is about the car that made it seemingly speak in an entirely different language than quite literally every other car I've driven. With it being made absolutely clear that this car and I don't mix, and that therefore I am the least qualified person on earth to talk about it, you can disbelieve my description of my driving experience in the Mk IV. Hell, I'm not even sure if I want to take myself seriously.
The bias ply tyres I think (I guess...?) were responsible for most of the ambiguity I felt in the Mk IV. It really felt to me like they bit at different points each and every time you pressed the brake pedal and turned the wheel. The tyres didn't grip and let go as linearly as modern radials do. Not only that, but they weren't very communicative either. I at no point ever knew which tyre had grip and which were slipping, until I heard the screams of murder and saw their white blood in the air behind me. Every time I turned the wheel hard, it felt like most of my steering input was used to flex the chassis of the car instead of rotating it. The car felt taut with little body movement, true to a racing car. Yet, what little body movement it did have felt snappy, sudden, overbearing, disorienting, and completely unrecoverable if the side windows caught a bit too much wind.
Speaking of, there's a very odd knocking sound in the cockpit of the car at speed, almost like a whole cylinder had come loose in the block. I was given every assurance that the car was in immaculate, race ready condition, as it would've been exactly at 1967's race start. I can only theorise that that knocking sound was just turbulent air whipping this antique body non stop.
Getting whipped with a pee pee in my rear.
I honestly think that the only reason the Mark IV won Le Mans is because it does 10km/h more than the P4 down Mulsanne Straight - a drag limited top speed of 318km/h. The P4 does manage to keep with and catch up to the Mark IV, but the moment it pulls out of the latter's slipstream to overtake, it simply falls back before being able to complete the move.
Racer bump drafting me instead of Rick XD
Everywhere else, it seemed to me like the P4 had the advantage - it was lighter*, has one more forward gear, and walloped the Mk IV so badly on the launch and mid speed acceleration, it made the Mk IVs look like they've stalled - and they most likely did, because much like the Challenger from last week, the NA V8 in the Mk IV is a peaky one, and choking it with TCS at launch kills it. To give an example of how big a difference the launch and mid range acceleration between these two are, we were doing standing starts at Le Mans. 1st to 4th were Fords, me being 2nd, and Rick 5th in a Ferrari. I took the lead on launch, and I almost side swiped Rick's P4 on the Dunlop right hander kink going into the first braking zone of the circuit, simply because I wasn't expecting anything to shoot up to me at launch like that!
From what I hear from the Ferrari drivers, you have to simply go hell for leather on launch in the P4 as well, requiring spinning of the wheels at launch and punishing drivers with traction control active. This means that both these cars are challenging to launch, and god help you if you need to dodge someone off the line who didn't get the memo while your tyres are on fire:
Terrified Asian screeching drowned out by tyre noise.
It's shocking to me how much better the P4 was at every aspect aside from top speed, and quite honestly, I don't really understand why a Le Mans racecar would be topless. Still, I think on any other track other than Le Mans, Monza, and Route X, the P4 is, as-tested, the faster car, and better value for 20 million. Even with the 1.475km (0.917 miles) home straight of Fuji, top speed wasn't a factor in either car, meaning the P4 outpaces the Mk IV over the entire track. And if you need further proof, Vic was in the Mk IV the whole night, and knowing him, he's usually in the slower car of a 2-car week to give the rest of the field a chance.
*And now, the rant. The P4 has a claimed mass of 792kg (1746lbs), which would make it 208kg (459lbs) lighter than the Mk IV. However, Ferrari can NEVER be trusted to not understate their mass and overstate their power figures, like an insecure teenage girl who never grew up in all the time between 1967 to the 2020. Yes, I will bring these recurring incidents up every time a Ferrari comes up. No, I can't let it go. It's the reason why I can't trust spec sheets and reviews anymore, and have to waste hours fact checking sources, making sure quoted mass figures are kerb, and making sure they're legitimate, because FRICKERS like them exist and I hate them for it.
It should go without saying to anyone who's ever pushed a car hard that trust is of the utmost importance in a performance car. How far would you be willing to trust a car built by a company that reeks of dishonesty in their spec sheets? Would you want to be seen in one, would you want yourself to be personified by one? Cars, and driving is way too personal a thing for me, and I absolutely refuse to accept, or even be seen in any car with their insecure teenage girl hissy fit badge on it. No, there's nothing you can say to change my mind about it. Even the "definitive" Ferrari is a dishonest sack of sloppy sheet, and so that seems to me to be how they want to be perceived and defined. Just keep in mind that the 330 P4 in Forza weighs 1030kg (2271 lbs), 30kg MORE than the Mark IV, for a total mass discrepancy of 238kg. No, I couldn't find any other source that corroborates this, but what am I supposed to do? There are only four of these things in the world. Am I supposed to go up to an extremely rich owner to politely ask him if I could weigh his most valuable asset to ascertain if it's a pretentious sack of sheet for my review? Literally every other manufacturer uses kerb mass, so why are Ferrari cars allowed to run as if they were dry? Any Ferrari to me is therefore an automatic Beater on sight. If we can't even test it accurately, there was never any room for any meaningful discussion to begin with, in my mind. The whole house might not even exist.
That brings this tangent quite conveniently back to the matter at hand: My verdicts for these cars, one of which I haven't driven and one I felt I drove too much, is a Beater and a question mark. No prizes for guessing which is awarded to which car.
Yep, the Ford and I were on such a huge disagreement that I got sick of driving it. I stopped voting for tracks because I really didn't care where we'd run these cars next. I even left a well populated meet early because I simply didn't want to drive this thing anymore. Yet, I realise that it's a problem with me as a driver, and not the car; others performed well in the Ford, such as Mustang, Vic "Ken Miles" Reign, and Drex. I therefore don't feel qualified to really call it a Beater, in spite of how sick it made me feel.
And it sucks, because I really, really want to like the Ford GTs. If humiliating a brand like Ferrari wasn't enough a reason to root for them, then the cars, both vintage and modern, look like the sickest things on the road that hasn't aged a day. Ford did a spectacular job bringing that vintage look into modern times and making it relevant, in contrast to the other vintage restomods that look painful and awkward on the streets today. The performance relative to their eras have always been staggering, and I really like how Ford "protects" the GT name so well, only using it on cars that could really challenge the world and deliver on what was promised. I just... wish I gelled with them more. I find myself lustful and respecting of the Ford GT40s and GTs, but I can just... never seem to really love them. I just never found that connection with them. And it sucks.
If I had to name a few takeaways from this little field trip like we had to back in school, it'd be:
a) Radial Tyres are quite literally black magic, and, b) I rescind all my earlier complaints about the Challenger's low top speed, because I now see that it is not an engineering oversight, but rather, a safety feature.
And, lastly,
c) Never trust a Ferrari.
Small Quirks:
The Mk IV is INFURIATING to work with in the livery editor. The car is fiendishly curvy, which makes it a nightmare to get even its stock door number circle to look right. Its stock stripes not only aren't centred, but they don't even line up across body panels, which is making me irrationally mad.
Yellow line: centre line Green line: centre of the rear stripes
Not only that, but the stripes themselves don't even reach the end of their panels, and the black and white stripes don't even end at the same place. URGH.
I KNOW this isn't a big deal AT ALL. But if you were trying to replicate the stock stripes, you can't overlook these faults! Do you go for something more "proper" but inaccurate? Or do you try to somehow replicate the car's original faults?! This car is OCD hell!
The original racing number of the car is actually hollow, so the red parts of the "1" are actually body colour!
The Mk IV and P4 both unfortunately lose their bias ply tread patterns if they as much touch the livery editor, so the default Racing Hards of the Mk IV get replaced with grooveless slick lookalikes. The tyre letterings are also unfortunately lost, and cannot be reapplied.
The only place where the tyre lettering remains is... the spare tyre! It even retains the tread pattern!
The P4 also has a spare tyre up its butt. Are Le Mans racers required to carry a spare for the race?
I looked at the piece of paper that had been presented - or more accurately, meekly pushed into what can barely be considered my half of the table. I then looked up at Esther the editor, who was silent, head down, and squirming in her seat, hands on her thighs. I looked at the quote again, and then back at Esther. The quote, and then her again. And again. Her nervousness and jittering was almost palpable across and on the table. It was the most vulnerable and unstable as I have seen her in the few short months I've been working with her.
"This can't be real", I thought. And yet, there it was, in black and white and plain English, at my fingertips. I pinched my thigh with my free hand just to make sure I was awake. I was.
"Twenty... MILLION, USD?", I ask to confirm, still clinging onto that last thread of hope that maybe my math and eyesight both have gotten worse with age, or that the usually well put together, highly effective, and assertive Esther would tell me otherwise like she always does. I was only worsening the situation.
"Y-yes...", she replies, after what felt like an eternity of hesitation.
"How the actual FRICK am I supposed to get that kind of money?"
"W-well...", she stammers, as though a running car with an ignition coil pulled out of one cylinder. "a-as usual... you pay a bit... and then earn it back via subscriptions and ads in the review-"
"Twenty MILLION dollars?!", I cut her off while throwing the clear folder across the table back at her, already annoyed at the corporate BS that was being force fed into me.
"I'm sorry...!", she repeats, this time immediately, with a long trailing off. For a while, there was only heavy silence in the room, as the full weight of the situation sank further in, pressing in, weighing on us, making it difficult to even breathe. The unease, uncertainty, helplessness, and even panic, is not unlike what I envision the aftermath of a literal bomb dropping to be like.
Week 100 of Car of the Week is fast approaching, and to commemorate, the big wigs at COTW had the brilliant idea of pitting two 53 year old priceless relics of racing cars against each other: the Ferrari 330 P4 and the Ford GT40 Mk IV. Well, I guess "priceless" isn't really the word to describe them, is it? They both have a price on them: twenty million dollars. Each.
Needless to say, no insurance firm run by someone with even half a brain cell would insure either car for racing, with a quote so high, their accountants must've thought they/we were similarly high when they've had to print out a number that big. You can tell they really weren't prepared to quote a premium with so many zeroes at the back of it: the numbers already spilled out of the table and off the page. Who knows if it really was twenty million; there could've been more zeroes after they couldn't fit on the page. Basically, we either buy the cars for ourselves for twenty million dollars each and race them as our own, or we pay an insurance firm twenty million dollars per car to insure them for racing. I think the choice is clear.
"I know only two ways of making money", I say in an annoyed, yet resigned tone after a sigh.
Esther looks up at me finally, her face a crumpled mess of a plethora of emotions, yet somehow shining through it all was... a sort of earnestness that burrows its way into one's heart.
I continue: "Reviewing... and racing."
"You don't have to do this, it's a stupid idea!", she tries to reason, and rightly so.
It was my turn to pause and hesitate, finally. I tell her, after thinking about it for all of three seconds, "I want to."
She looks at me dead on with pleading eyes, not knowing what to say. And for a while, neither did I. The rational side of my brain was still stuck at trying to process what I had just said, myself. We just sat across the table from each other, silent, my eyes darting about the room, sometimes meeting. It was a comforting calm before the storm I was going to walk back into on my own free will. I really appreciated that moment. It was... reassuring, and encouraging, somehow.
"I'm sorry", it was my turn to apologise, once the initial shock had worn off, though there was no getting away from the atmosphere. "It wasn't your fault."
She mutters something inaudible from just across the table.
"I'm sorry?", I ask for clarification.
"I'm sorry", she restates, barely audibly this time.
"What are you apologising for? I just said-"
"I'm sorry!", this time, loud enough to take me aback. I recoil back into my seat, my heart feeling a little weak after the scare.
There was a long, long while of just the two of us sitting there, me looking at her while she hides her face from me below a lowered head. Still hidden behind her long hair, she finally brings herself to say, "Promise me you'll be safe."
I reply with as sincere a smile as I could force, "I'll try my darndest."
*********************************************
By some weird thread of logic that makes sense in some other universe I'm no part of, I find myself in Italy to try to rake together that twenty million. Italy's most famous racetrack is also one of its most boring: Monza. Endless straights catering to people who love numbers and straight lines more than anything in a car, spitefully broken up by the samey Chicanes because the FIA told them that a racing circuit needs to actually have corners. Truly, this track is the most nothing circuit I've ever seen in my entire life, aside from ovals. It tests for absolutely nothing aside from acceleration and braking, which, surprise surprise, any other track tests. You could put me in my loudest, favourite cars, and I'd fall asleep on this track. The ONLY reason why they're even still relevant today is because of nostalgia: which is to say, these tracks have no good reason to even be relevant today. How much of a nostalgia hit are you going to have if you don't even run the oval, anyway?
It would at least make for safe, if not boring racing, if people actually knew how to brake for Turn 1 at Monza. And it was precisely because of this safety and boredom that makes me feel better about driving a decommissioned rental Porsche 919 round seven laps at a time to earn money. Being a modern, hybrid LMP1 car capable of speeds in excess of 330km/h (205mph), Monza might actually end up being a good fit for something else other than Ferraris with less than zero handling.
To get this out of the way first and foremost: the 919 is not very competitive at all in Gran Turismo Championships' nonsensical "Group 1" category, which lumps together modern LMP1 cars with Group C monsters of a bygone era making almost twice their power... and then sprinkle in about a dozen more one-off concept cars by various manufacturers, de-tuned to somewhat match the performance of these two vastly different groups. Back when I was an active racing driver, I vehemently avoided Group 1 races because Group 1 is easily the dumbest category in Gran Turismo - and trust me when I say that that's saying something. If fuel was an issue in the race - and it most likely is, there is simply nothing that can compare to the thriftiness of the hybrid Toyota TS050, making every Group 1 race a TS050 One Make. If fuel WASN'T an issue, then the field opens up a bit more, to accommodate the SRT Tomahawk VGT. In the off chance that the track had enough high speed sections, then the Nissan R92CP would dominate, with an uncontested top speed of 374km/h (232mph). Truly, this is a complete dumpster fire of a category, beyond the saving of Kaminori Samauchi and his simplistic tweaks of power and mass.
Nowhere in the above paragraph does the name "Porsche 919" come up, which means it has zero relevancy and competitive merit in Group 1. If you're the sort of person that cares only for a racing car's competitive merits - no issue with that at all, that's what these things are meant to do - you can stop reading right here.
Visibility in the Nine One Nine- oh, sorry, the Nine Nineteen, is only as can be expected... which is to say, non-existent. (Seriously, is there a law that dictates how these names should be read?) As if being buried deep into the carbon tub of the car shielded by body panels everywhere but the front 35 degrees wasn't enough of a hindrance to the driver, the windshield wiper sits dead in the middle of the windshield in its off position, and the squared off steering wheel blocks off the entirety of said 35 degrees of forward vision you do have when turned:
I TRULY don't understand how other people can drive LMP1 cars; I can't even see out of them. The only thing I can see is on the right... fender, is a reminder of how great a racecar I'm driving, and that German engineering is indeed the best in the world, with the implication that failure will not be tolerated. Surely there's no way a driver can fail to win a race, seeing constant... encouragement, like that, right? That's how the human psyche works, right?
Assuming I don't have to forfeit a hefty 110 thousand dollar deposit for damaging the car, I'm promised a whopping 330k USD net profit per seven lap run, which might have been an easy enough thing to do at Monza, but the rich socialites I'm running with aren't exactly... experienced racing drivers. They probably had like a three day crash course on "how to not crash your new Group 1 toy" before being chauffeured here. It didn't take very long at all for me to realise that there's simply no reading their movements or intents, because they're babbling like toddlers and falling over themselves instead of speaking in coherent sentences in the language of "Carese". God help me if they overcook a brain dead, simplistic chicane with the aid of distance markers, and go off into the kitty litter, because they have NO CONCEPTION of what a safe, responsible track rejoin is, and I may end up losing more than my 110k deposit if I gave them what they rightfully deserved.
This problem is exacerbated by the driving characteristics of this rental 919. The hybrid system in this car, along with its sawn-off gearing means that this car accelerates with such ferocity, it truly does feel like you're tearing a hole through the fabric of space in front of the car and getting sucked forward. Your guts will compress, your neck will shear, and your eyes will water worse in this car than if you actually got punched for real in the stomach. For some context, this featherweight prototype weighing in at a scant 875kg (1,930lbs) with AWD accelerates at the limit of the tyres' grip in 2nd and 3rd - that's right: this thing stops as fast as it goes in 2nd and 3rd, and it is very possible to wheelspin in 2nd WITH RACING SLICKS if you just give it a boot full in 2nd. Out of tighter corners that necessitate dropping into these lower gears, you best make sure your car is straightened out before you progressively roll on the death pedal, as otherwise the car overloads all four of its tyres in an instant, transforming this juggernaut of technological marvel born from decades of racing know-how into a paralysed roller coaster on rails locked onto the nearest available kitty litter store. And while the car has been toilet trained, the same unfortunately can't be said for its driver.
Over the course of the seven laps of Monza, and later five at Le Mans, I had initially worried that the batteries of the 919 would die off and leave me limp for the picking against the Group C cars, and within reach of the other more modern LMP1s that are being driven... *cough* more conservatively. However, the 919 never left me hanging, as it very cleverly balances out real time performance while making sure the batteries stay charged. The first five forward gears are all hybrid battery assisted, which lets the 919 stand toe-to-toe with, and even out-accelerate the Group C monsters, but because said five gears are shorter than a Diglett even when stacked on top of each other, you'll find yourself in 6th in no time. For some context, I'm sure I spent only about a second in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th each (thanks for the video, Nismo!). Above 6,000rpm in 6th and 7th, the batteries stop powering the car, and instead draws part of the power from the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) to recharge. This effectively means that you have just about a thousand BHP combined from both the ICE and batteries in the first five gears, and immediately less than half that the moment you shift into 6th, as now the ICE is being used to recharge the batteries while also propelling the car. This not only causes the 919 to behave vastly differently at different speeds and corners, it also causes the car to noticeably lose out in acceleration, letting Group C cars sail by, seeing as they have nearly a thousand BHP all the time. I get the impression that this car was meant to burst into a competitor's slipstream, before relaxing in 6th and 7th to recharge the batteries over the Mulsanne Straight. Seeing as you'll be spending most of your track time in 6th and 7th at tracks like Monza and Le Mans, you'll also be spending most of your time recharging the batteries as well, which means the batteries never die no matter how many laps you do with the car.
What's especially impressive to me however, is not only how the 919 never seems to run out of charge, but also how... even the torque curve is on this massively complicated setup, with turbos and hybrids, somehow squeezing 500BHP and 320km/h from a 2 Litre V4, and somehow suppressing all that wizardry to just 875kg. The hybrid and turbochargers seem to compliment each other perfectly, with the hybrid patching up throttle response and low end torque, and the turbos recharging the batteries once they get spooling. It's massively impressive to me not just from a technological standpoint, but also how it made for a shockingly natural feeling driving experience, even with the vastly different personalities at different speeds. While I always complain about how modern cars are too gimmicky and complicated for their own good, the 919 proves that it can be done right in a lightweight package, and I can only wish this technology would trickle down to road cars sooner than later (HINT: Porsche, please sponsor me a 918 to review? I promise I'll be nice!)
It is entirely possible for the 919 to run out of charge on most "normal" tracks, or if there's a sudden obstacle you need to dodge in the middle of a straight, yellow flags, etc.. It's a car that's very reliant on its charging cycle around a track to stay competitive, and even on its established cycle, it has little charge to spare. However. It's just inadvisable to run LMP1 cars on tighter tracks, in general. The 919 especially, because not only does it need long straights to recharge its batteries and to make the most of regenerative braking, but the way it drives on the limits of its grip even on corner exit I'm sure will destroy its tyres in record time on a more technical, suffocating track.
While the Group C cars waltzed past me on the straights, this space age racing machine 919 stops so much better than the antiqued Group C monsters, it feels like you're panic braking trying to dodge a stunned deer in your headlights at every corner entry. And, true to its Porsche DNA, this long wheelbase LMP1 car is actually... fun, to corner with. The 919 not only feels willing, but engaging to drive, as well. I even felt small flashes of my Cayman GT4 Clubsport in the "chuckability" of this car. And just like the Cayman, the 919 is a very encouraging, engaging, playful, yet forgiving and predictable drive, explosive acceleration aside. Of course, being this engaging also means it tires out the driver much quicker, even at wide open tracks like Monza and Le Mans. Having only driven some Group C cars for fun, never having bothered with Group 1, I get the distinct impression that prototypes meant to run Le Mans are numb and almost train-like in how they handle and feel just so they don't put too much strain on the drivers too quickly; you aren't really meant to nail every braking point and every apex, or drive it at ten tenths all the time - both the man and machine have to last. The 919 however, proves that the sport has blown past that sort of thinking and norm, seemingly as quickly as it accelerates to 6th with charge.
But perhaps it's not entirely fair to see the 919 as "just" a Le Mans Prototype - it's a car that raced in other disciplines of motorsports, like the 6 Hours of Spa, Silverstone, and Interlagos - tracks with, you know, actual corners. And the 919 did well in all of them. As if winning the most grueling and prestigious race in the highest echelon of motorsports, the 24 Hours of Le Mans multiple times, wasn't enough, Porsche wasn't done flexing with this car; they even built a 919 Evo version to claim more lap records, outpacing modern F1 cars in some instances. Truly, this car might just be the Jack of All Trades, Master of Many. Winning Le Mans twice was probably just a side thing for it, as a testament to what an engineering marvel the 919 is.
It's biggest problem isn't within itself, but rather, external. The fact that the TS050 exists is the one and only nail it needed in its coffin, and the defeat it hands the 919 isn't even a honourable one. For as clever and mind boggling the systems in the 919 are, they feel like trying too hard to overcompensate for something. The TS050 doesn't sap power from its engine to recharge its batteries - ever, meaning the 919 loses out on top end acceleration against it. The TS050 also harvests a ridiculous abundance of charge from regenerative braking - so much so it makes the 919 look like a e-pauper, barely getting by from corner to corner. This may be due to the fact that Toyota has been making Priuses for well over a decade by the time the TS050 debuted, meaning they have more regenerative and hybrid know-how. Or it could just be the fact that the TS050 has a 8MJ (2.2kWh) battery, while the 919 only has a 6MJ (1.7kWh) battery, which I'm sure puts these two cars in different classes of LMP1, but lumped into "Group 1" all the same. The increased charge in the TS050 compared to the 919 not only helps it in fuel efficiency, but also in high speed runs as well.
Competitive merits aside, the 919 is my favourite LMP1 to drive, simply because it's a blast to drive. It's sublime handling, backed with a sense of occasion, made me smile every time I drove it. And that, to me, is the most important thing, because I'm never going to take Group 1 seriously. It really made me appreciate the LMP1 class more, and the insane technology that goes into each car, and made me see just how far Le Mans prototype cars have come ever since the sorely missed Group C era.
But good GOD it's ugly. I'm sure the 918 looks a LOT better though...
One doesn't spit in the wind, tug at Superman's cape, or argue with results. The 919 dominated every discipline of motorsports it was entered in, only seeming to struggle in a joke of a category that is Group 1. One could also make the argument that the only reason Toyota won 2018's 24 Hours of Le Mans with the TS050 is because Porsche pulled out after 2017. The 919 is, by all accounts, a staggering display and flex of engineering. And it helped me win 330k in just under eleven minutes of track action.
Now to just do this... 61 times.
I need scissors.
*********************************************
I put on a tough, unflinching façade, back straight up against the chair. Surrounding the proceedings were legions of guards, each ready to take me down at a moment's notice. The middle-man, verifying the authenticity of each bill in each suitcase, works with a terrifying silence and efficiency, building a flow and tension in the air almost just so that it could snap at his will. Every bill he picked up with that machine like grace and efficiency, each held into the scrutiny of the light, might as well have been individual razor blades ready to cut that net of tension in the air, beckoning the untold horrors of hell to rain upon me.
Twenty million dollars. I could retire and lead a lavish life in the lap of luxury in a big home in the middle of nowhere. I could be running for presidency, I could end world hunger. I could buy every car I've tested in COTW and still have change left over. I could even buy a McLaren F1 as their prices stand today. Or, hell, I could even buy 6 Gordon Murray T.50s. I could buy buy my way out of this crippling loneliness and anxiety every night, and yet... here I am, about to blow it all on an antique race car.
Why did my therapist leave me? Did she lie to me about her changing jobs? Did she really think, and believe, that I would be fine on my own?
The middle-man stops, holding a note in his hands. The guards, professional as any human being can be physically expected to be, show hints of gasping and tensing their muscles through their poker faces. All that remains now is for the verdict to be read.
"Sir... these notes...
......
are all legitimate."
Everybody in the room heaved a sigh, as though the room itself exhaled all the foul atmosphere. The guards loosened up, and the seller reverted back to his businessman smile, before handing me the key to the historic Mk IV Ford GT40. A thorough technical inspection by the Ford technicians and a test drive later, the final papers were signed, and the car was now legally mine.
"It's incredible to see someone so young so... interested in such a vintage race car", says the owner, probably more impressed by the twenty million than my interest in the car. "Where are you displaying it, might I ask?"
"Le Mans", I reply in a tone more monotonous and lifeless than Microsoft Sam's.
"Oh? I wasn't aware that there was a special event at Le Mans... usually they'd ask me to loan them my car for display purposes at these big events... heh, you understand, surely. Are you building some sort of museum near Le Mans? Hard to imagine it would be lucrative with, you know..."
This week for me began late at night in my near silent man cave, the only sounds in being streaks of clattering away at a mechanical keyboard, punctuated by several clicks of a mouse, and the occasional sigh.
"The hell even IS a pony car...?"
This week's definition of a pony car, according to Wikipedia, is "an American car classification for affordable, compact, highly styled coupés or convertibles with a 'sporty' or performance-oriented image."
So... these things are just for show? Are these things actually sporty or not? Need I turn up in a Challenger adorned in a sparkly pink colour shifting My Little Pony livery?
Even before having been assigned a car this week, I was already worrying. I know nothing about American cars and culture. Asking me to review a 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T is like asking me to read and review the Holy Bible written in Braille. I am just about the least qualified person to offer critique on the matter, and am most likely going to completely miss the point and not understand a thing. It most likely is something I'm completely disinterested in, to begin with.
Okay then, what's a Challenger?
A Challenger, to my understanding, is a mangled mess bolted onto a chassis and four wheels. I knew nothing about it to begin with, but the more I read, somehow it seemed like the less I knew about it. It was offered with a choice of - get this - EIGHT different engines. That's right, if I thought the Lexus from last week had an excessive number of gears, "I ain't seen nothing yet". This car has the same number of engine choices as a modern "sport" luxury coupé has gears. Some people claim that a car's engine is it's heart, and I can definitely see where that argument comes from. What is the identity, personality, and intent of a car then, with EIGHT different engines to choose from? Are these things built with Legos?
So then which is the best engine? The biggest one with the most power output, right? In the Challenger's case, the biggest engine would be... the 440 Cubic Inch (the hell is a cu in? 7.2 lit- SEVEN POINT TWO LITRES?!) RB440 engine, producing... 395PS? How the hell do you manage to make so little power out of so much displacement? And torque... 490 lb⋅ft, which is... 664 N⋅m?!
That's... more than double what my 2002 FD makes.
So then, back to the Challenger... which engine is the best?
Is the biggest engine the best engine? It has a 7.0 L Hemi. Isn't the Hemi Dodge's... special... signature... trademark... thing? Is that the best engine, or is the 7.2L better? Or the badass sounding "Magnum" engine the best? Or is a smaller engine with a lighter mass and better balance the better engine? I DON'T KNOW.
My head hurts even before having laid eyes on the car I'm going to be assigned. Thankfully, I didn't have to choose an engine; the COTW officials are just going to assign me a car, and I'm just going to have to trust that everyone else has the same car, mechanically speaking.
MECHANICALLY speaking.
Unfortunately, I'm extended the courtesy of getting to pick the colour of my Challenger.
There are twenty factory paintjobs for this car.
Is this... what Freedom feels like?
I must've spent about half an hour just looking at the car with paint samples superimposed onto it, trying to decide which colour looked best/ fit the image of 70s America best/ best represented my personality. There was a lot of quirky charm to the paint selection as well, and some names, like "Go Mango" and "Sublime" made me chuckle a lot. Everything, from boring like "Beige" to whack butt wild like "Panther Pink" was on offer, and I even recognise some colours that has carried onto modern Dodges, like "Plum Crazy". What a treat!
I ended up with "Light Gold Metallic". It wasn't too attention grabbing like lime green, pink, or purple, and not completely, abysmally flat like beige. The hue really did seem to fit the overall shape and time period of the car... I think. Over the email exchange, I was given a link to a collection of liveries and designs of the car, since I'm getting to be known as "Mr. Boring", or the "license plate guy" in the weekly races. As if the Challenger needed any help being unique with all the factory options with engines, paints, and other bells and whistles. I mean, come on, in a sea of customised cars and wild liveries, being completely stock is a good way to stand out too, right?! Kind of like coming across an unmolested 180SX at a car meet.
I bite anyway, out of curiosity. There are a lot of what looks like NASCAR designs, which I, of course, know nothing about. A few Hot Wheels designs of varying quality, cop cars of dubious authenticity, and even some... *er-hem* simplistic designs with flames. People really like these things, huh? After seeing a few orange cars with flags on their roofs however, I decide to just roll up to this week's meet with a factory fresh, museum worthy Challenger, complete with its dealer license plate. I'm just going to try to not ruffle any feathers this week.
I arrived at Sardegna for the first race this week, still not knowing what really to expect out of the Challenger. I've done all the reading I can about the car, and even did Esther's little anime spectacle pushy thing to look smart a few times, to no real avail. American cars of this era just seem to lump together without much to differentiate them; they're all 2 door FR cars with V8s, 4 speed manuals at best, open diffs, soft suspension, no ABS, and bias ply tyres. With a combination like that, there's a very exacting way to drive these cars, and you can only really expect so much from them. About the only way to really separate these cars from each other is how much power and mass each has, and how tall each car is geared, or simply subjective stuff like styling, sound, and brand loyalty.
From what I've read, the Challenger has the most horses among its stable mates (aha, get it? Pony cars? Horsepower? Stable...? Okay I'll see myself out). The car I wound up getting was the 7 litre Hemi, which makes 430PS. In comparison, the Camaro Z/28 makes a paltry 293PS, and the Mustang Mach 1, 306PS. It however also weighs the most, at a whopping 1,724kg (3,800lbs), which isn't a long ways off from the RC F from last week. The Mach 1 is a little lighter at 1,615kg (3,561lbs), and the Z/28, a featherweight by comparison, light even by today's standards at 1,415kg (3,120lbs).
As per tradition however, the first few races were all done in the Car of the Week, just to get a feel for the car before we start throwing other things (like a F150 Raptor!) into the blender.
First to last, Racer, Nismo, Rob, Rick, me, Vic. Nat's... been uncontactable and MIA since two weeks ago. I can only assume she didn't do well in her tests.
Because most of us racers are filthy millennials that can't wipe our own butts trying to eke out a living in this mad world, our cars are all fitted with optional ABS, traction control, and brake bias controllers for the meet. Using TCS only for launch as I would a modern car, the Challenger bogs down in 1st gear severely, so much so that it was much quicker if you simply let the wheels spin when you drop the clutch, simply because a wheelspinning car is faster than a car with a dead engine.
Comparing the wheel spinners to the non spinners. Nismo, Vic, and I spun, while Racer, Rob, and Rick didn't.
The scene at T2. Vic basically shot up from last to 2nd, just from smoking his tyres at launch (like god intended, if I understand the Bible correctly), with me being forced to the outside of the slight left kink of T1.
That's right: the V8 Hemi in this thing I find has a ridiculously, spitefully narrow powerband; it redlines at 5,500rpm, and it simply goes limp at anything below 4,000. For crying out loud, even a 1967 Cosmo with a Rotary engine has a wider powerband than this almighty 'MURICAN V8. With all the hype that was thrown at me in my last minute researching about muscle cars and great thumping V8s with mountains of torque, the Challenger was as disappointing to me as walking into a McDonald's and finding out they're all out of fries, or going to Monza and finding out they don't run the oval anymore. At this point, what even is the point anymore? Why am I still here, just to suffer?
As if this dead horse needed more beating (aha, get it? Pony car, dead horse- I'M NOT SORRY!), the engine and its slim jim narrow powerband is perhaps to blame for another one of the car's glaring faults: its gearing. The gears on this car are so narrow that you're in 3rd for less than three seconds at full throttle on a flat road. Not only does this mean that you're fumbling around with the stick in this car a lot, losing precious milliseconds on the track, the low gearing on this thing means that the Challenger tops out at a gear limited top speed of 184km/h (114mph). I've seen longer skirts in anime than the gearing of this Challenger. The short gearing means that I often found myself drowning the engine mid corners. Shifting down would cause it to immediately run out of breath, and even light up the rear tyres. Unfortunately, because of the peaky muscle car engine, it's faster to shift down into a lower gear, get the rear end lively, and power out of the corner with a hint of both power oversteer and one tyre fire than to crawl out of a corner in a higher gear, as Vic and I will demonstrate to you:
Because of this car's abysmal gearing, we were running short versions of most tracks this week, like Sardegna C, Suzuka East, and Maggiore Central, in spite of my disdain for these short tracks, likening them to going to a Red Light District for just a hug. In this case, I'd rather just a fling and flick, than to have to spend an entire night at redline to a woeful drone of an asphyxiating car. No amount of research I could do could get me to understand how the American public and engineers both could accept these ratios. The car was nearly topping out even at a relatively tight, technical, home grown track of Laguna Seca, and I'm sure America has many, many more wide open tracks that let cars stretch their legs more. WHAT are these cars made to do? Just a quarter mile and nothing else? Did no one else find issue with driving a car at its redline constantly?
With a modern day ABS, the Challenger can actually be pushed quite hard on corner entry, and the bias ply tyres really do require a lot of weight on them before they start to bite. That is to say, without the assurance and precision that ABS affords, the Challenger is a sloppy mess to drive. It really makes one appreciate just how much ABS is doing for the driver, driving this back-to-back with ABS on and then off after the weekly meet. I began to realise the thousands of adjustments it needs to make a second, how quickly it needs to calculate and make those adjustments, while balancing out braking force left and right, all while accounting for changing road surfaces and undulations.
With this assured increase of deceleration power, the rear end of the Challenger just about reaches up for the sky in each braking zone, causing it to slide out in most situations, especially with aggressive heel and toe, which can be easily caught by manually easing off the brakes a little and applying a quick flash of counter steer, which gets the car obediently back in line. With an aftermarket brake balance controller, this problem is better massaged out of the car. Of course, I only remember I HAD a brake balance controller at race 5 at Suzuka...
Corner exit, however, is a little more... hairy.
In addition to the earlier mentioned indecision when it comes to the car's gearing on corner exit, the Challenger exhibits every shortcoming of a car of its era. You simply can't put the same weight over the rear tyres on corner exit as you did corner entry, so the car needs to be babied out of a corner. You'll need to account for both over and understeer when you apply power out of a corner, as you'll need to carefully and gradually shift weight over the rear with the gas pedal well before hitting the apex to ensure you won't make a mess of the rears when it's time to actually put power down. And once you do, you'll need to watch for the understeer as well in this extremely nose heavy car.
Other traits common to cars of its era, the Challenger shares as well, such as having a completely open diff, bias ply tyres, and soft suspension. What this list translates to in driving is that the car is very liable to snap on you if you induce awkward lateral weight shifts mid corner, as all the power simply flies to the side without grip, causing a torque vectoring effect that sends you only in the completely wrong direction at any given moment. You therefore need to avoid any road imperfections when driving this thing hard, such as rumble strips, and really plan out a rock solid line way in advance, as the car doesn't take mid corner adjustments well. It is nigh impossible to get this thing back once it starts fishtailing as a result. While I did fishtail it in a race that never happened at a track that didn't exist, I was lucky enough to recover it unscathed. The only way I could describe the sensation is attempting to navigate a cargo ship through a slalom at sea... while time is flowing a hundred times faster.
So, what's my verdict of this car?
If you hadn't been bored to death my my review of the car yet, you probably can't tell that I really don't give two shits about the car. I've never felt this bored writing a review before. The charm of COTW is that I get an incentive to drive cars I usually overlook, and I can tell you after driving this that I really don't feel any less apathetic towards the car before and after driving it, simply because there's no real point to it. I can hardly be bothered to give it a Beater and Forget Her. I just want to walk away from it as quickly as possible.
Its completely useless gearing makes lap times completely out of the question for most tracks, with only very few exceptions like Tsukuba, Laguna Seca, and Horse Thief Mile. Needless to say, a 50 year old muscle car isn't going to corner, so putting it on these tight, technical tracks is torture for both man and machine. It really does appear to me, someone who knows nothing about this segment of cars, that they're simply built for the quarter mile, and nothing else. No exaggeration.
To put this theory to test, I arranged for a very unscientific Zero-Yon- I mean, quarter mile test, at a top secret location. The folks in charge of this salivating test track are so secretive with its location, that I had to be blindfolded, put to sleep via drugs, and then locked in a black box every time I access and leave it. There appears to be an infield layout to this track as well, but that's so secretive, no outsider has yet been allowed in.
Given the great lengths to keep this track a top secret, and the great pains to go through to even rent it for an exorbitant price, it's not a track I like to have to use to test a car, even if it is undisputedly THE best place on earth (?) to test a car at its top speed, with two 12km straights linked by two enormous, generously banked corners not even a LaFerrari or Veyron would have to brake for. I only needed about 402 metres of straight road that day, but the owners of the track seemed to really like muscle cars, so I was actually invited to their test track free of charge to run the quarter mile... using distance markers in metres. Without proper timing equipment. And yes, I was drugged and put to sleep all the same on the way there.
I wasn't really doing the Zero Yon for a time, though. I know if I quoted a time, people would be all up in arms, saying crap like "you don't know how to drive (in a straight line)", "you don't know how to launch it", "you're running the wrong tyres and pressures", "you're carrying too much fuel, stupid", and "you shift slow af". I only had a stopwatch at hand for this, which was far from scientific, so I really, REALLY, didn't care how long the Zero Yon took. All I was here to do was to test a theory.
I crossed the 400m line at about 5,300rpm in fourth gear. If you recall, redline was 5,500rpm, and this car has only four forward gears.
This "car"... was really built to just do the Zero Yon, and quite literally NOTHING else. I now know why this segment of cars is called the "Pony Car" - because these cars are all one trick ponies.
To explain further my apathy towards this car and this segment: what's really the point of reviewing this car if the one thing it's meant to do can be read off a spec sheet? The only thing that separates a Camaro, a Mustang, and a Challenger to me therefore is price, styling, and the standing quarter mile times, and deciding on a car based on just those three factors feels very... shallow, to me. I don't think I can offer any new perspectives, or explain anything new of any significance by driving the car in the place of someone who couldn't. You really don't need a review to tell you that a muscle car can't corner. I'm not going to change the minds of anyone who's passionate about any particular pony car into liking another. It's also not a hill I see any merit dying on.
Ultimately, I need more than price, styling, and a standing quarter time from a car to really fall in love with it. None of them are going to corner. None of them will have gearing tall enough for most tracks. This effectively also means that whichever has the tallest gearing will be faster around most tracks. And, again, you can read gear ratios and top speeds off a spec sheet. There's zero reason to test them. They therefore all meld together in my mind in a barely distinguishable, completely irrelevant, never entertaining lump.
LITERALLY the same.
If I wanted an American fix, I'd get into my Viper, a Corvette, a modern day ZL1, or an F150.
or... even... *GASP* a Tesla.
I think I just became the most hated man in all of motorsports.
Yes, this Model S Signature Performance - not even the P100D, leaves muscle cars, and even the RC F, for dead at launch. Even though EVs are known for their abysmal lack of top speed, the Model S did just hit 200km/h (124mph) on the shared straight of Sardegna - 16km/h (9.9mph) more than what the Challenger does gear limited, which it can't even hit with slipstream due to the slight uphill at Sardegna's home straight. The ONE thing pony cars are meant to do, a family sedan does better, as one of the very many other things it does, which includes behaving well and cornering. There therefore is no point whatsoever any more to these classic pony cars.
Proof:
Editor's note: I thought you didn't want to ruffle any feathers!
Writer: Look, there's no denying the truth, okay? These cars are GARBAGE! EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM! And I have very little patience, you know that!
There are lots and lots of things that were better in the past, mainly, the economy and lack of deadly viruses. Thankfully, cars have only gotten better since then. The best thing I can say about these cars is that they're at least a nice reminder that not everything was better in the past. As someone with no sentiment for these cars, who never grew up with them, these cars, if they can even be called that, are entirely pointless to me. There are entire WORLDS of better cars that do the quarter mile faster, and fulfill other roles nowadays. A modern pickup would make this "performance car" sweat on any given track, for crying out loud.
You have NO IDEA how fast I had to set my shutter speed for this shot, just so Nismo would show up as more than a blue blur.
Don't get me wrong; that's not to say that this car, or these cars, are worthless. They may be pointless, but I don't think they're worthless. I'm sure I don't need to point out the legions of fans these cars have all over the world. So much so you get distinct groups with... passionate rivalries between them, so much so that these cars have survived oil crises and recessions to still be with us today in genuinely impressive builds and guises, and even painstaking restomods. Looking through the livery design catalogues for the Challenger, I think I understood at least that these cars were to a generation older than me, what the Viper is to me: completely useless and unjustifiable, and nigh impossible to explain, but loved nonetheless.
And that's fine. But the Challenger, and other cars of its era, just don't speak to me at that level. These cars aren't for me. And it's okay to not know everything.
...I suppose.
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A small little detail about the Challenger: it actually stays on bias ply tyres even with a livery, unlike the C2 Corvette from a few weeks ago! It even has three different bias ply tyre patterns for Comfort, Sport, and Wet tyres (both Inters and Heavy Wets share the same pattern). Racing slicks are grooveless as you'd expect.
"The RC F is a high-performance coupé of the Lexus brand, announced at the 2014 Detroit Auto Show. The letter 'F' for Lexus cars denotes the high performance version of the car, much like BMW's 'M' cars, Mercedes' 'AMG', Audi's 'RS', and Honda's 'Type R' monikers. The RC F's main competitor is the BMW M4, which has defined and dominated the segment by and large. You can distinguish an RC F from a base RC by the additional vents aft the front tyres, extra hood vents, and an active rear wing. Being the smallest, most nimble car in Lexus' lineup and with their biggest, most powerful in-house built NA V8 engine, the RC F is the sportiest model Lexus offers today."
Esther the editor lowers the clear folder she was just reading from and turns her head to look at me. I remain motionless from when I had first laid eyes on this week's car, with what I think and hope is a blank expression, but is most likely in reality, a disapproving, disgusted scowl.
"Did I get all that right?", asks she.
"That last part, I have doubts of."
She hastily flips through the corners of the papers in her folder, pulling some out partially by the corners, stuffing them back as quickly, trying to find something.
"You're right, don't worry", I quickly reassure her, realising I should limit my sarcasm around someone taking their first steps to learn more about cars. "It's just... Lexus? Sporty? In the same sentence? Pah. What a joke."
She gives me a confused look with a matching tilt of her head.
"Look, do your notes say how much it weighs?"
"1,790kg, or 3,946lbs", she quickly and tactfully replies, reading off her notes for the exact figures.
"Are you fucking kidding me?! Let me see that!"
I half snatched, half received the personal folder of Esther from her relenting grasp. As my eyes scoured through the taverns of material on the car, my eyelids widened enough to just about accommodate three eyeballs each, and my mouth warped into a mortifying hexagon pinched in from the sides. I simply could not believe what the photocopied brochures of the car, along with the printed out screenshots of the specs from Lexus' website are claiming: a kerb mass of nearly 1.8 tons. I know I was asking the question of the mass of the RC F as a setup to explain why it couldn't possibly be a sports car, or even a sportY car, but the colossal figures took even me by surprise.
"HOW is this car so heavy?! What does it even have?!", I exclaim, clumsily going through every page of research material Esther has gathered, messing them up and ruffling a few pages in the process. Aside from a 5 litre V8 sitting up front, nothing else jumped out at me; no AWD, no hybrid systems, no 57 speed DCT gearboxes, no sunroof, no massage seats... not even rice cookers in the centre console. What gives?
"Are you okay?", Esther asks, slowly, but forcefully retrieving her folder from my fumbling hands, as though asking her notes the question instead of me.
"You're... 26." "I feel old." "The median age of RC F owners is-"
"Thank you Esther very well done 100% flying colours", I shot up my posture to brisk walk over to the driver's side door of this JDM spec RC F. At my insistence, this week's car was handed over to some intern at COTW, to be driven and delivered to me at an inn. This way, I didn't have to meet the owner of the car, and was more free to take a verbal dump all over it if need be, as I am already liberally doing. That's right: I'm paying extra money to not have to interact with other people. Admit it: you would too if you could, even without the "big 19" messing everything up.
Fancy, high contrast, multi layered paintjob aside, one could almost swear this was some high end rental car with how... hateful, it looks. This tarted up Toyota looks fine from just about every angle, except any that involve the front end. If the Germans have defined this market segment and have dominated it for about a decade by the time the RC F came out, you'd think Toyota would've learned a thing or two about discreet, subtle styling. I've said it once, but it bears repeating every time: I hate the front grille of Lexus cars. It's way too in-your-face and obnoxious even in their smallest coupé, so I'd only recommend you take a look at their SUVs where the grilles are scaled up if you have a burning desire to become legally blind via post-traumatic psychogenic blindness.
Things aren't much more pleasant on the inside. This being a modern Lexus, it comes with their patented, trademark, god awful, counter-intuitive, way too slow and way too attention demanding remote touch interface thing, which has you controlling a screen beside the dash with a laptop-like touchpad, when every automaker and even laptops have since adopted touchscreens. Needless to say, this system is entirely inoperable when you're piloting the vehicle, and is much slower to use in comparison to a touchscreen even when the car is stopped. I was flabbergasted to learn that carbon ceramic brakes weren't even an option on the "standard" RC F. I'm sorry, but this is a 1.8 ton car capable of a claimed top speed of 270km/h (168mph), and you won't even give me an option for ceramics? I have to get the "Track Pack" edition of this higher performance version of the RC just to have the esteemed privilege of having the OPTION of carbon ceramics? Why would you not give me that option? Is it really that hard to swap some bolt on parts on the RC F? Is non sporty people's money not as good as sporty people's money? I'm sorry Lexus, but do you want me to die in this?
A rant that was at the tip of my tongue and fingertips last week is my utter hatred for active rear wings, and my dam of complaints can't handle two straight weeks of pressure. Am I the only one that finds active wings stupid? In the RC F, it comes up at a rather odd speed of 83km/h (51mph). Why would you need to retract it below that speed? How much drag is it causing at speeds that low? I'd argue the mass of all the hydraulic systems and the power it saps from the engine to operate it far outweigh any benefit retracting the damn things would provide. It's so stupid. All the "hardcore track performance" versions of cars with active wings ditch them in favour of fixed ones, like the 911 GT2, Aventador SV, or even Lexus' own LFA Nürburgring Package. Hell, the Track Edition of the RC F has a fixed wing. I can understand if that's too glaring for a sensible, discreet performance sedan, but why put a minuscule hydraulic wing in its place? How much downforce is that tiny thing going to generate for me? If it's there only to look cool, I find it has the opposite effect of showing that I don't have the best version of the car. And besides, how cool is a rear wing that only goes up like 2 mm? My tiny little Asian organ goes up farther than that.
Yep, that's the active rear wing, fully deployed.
The centred tachometer in this car is apparently an influence from the company's legendary LFA supercar... come on. At this point, I can't be the only one sick of Lexus referencing the LFA at every opportunity, can I? It's ten years old at this point, and Lexus has yet to produce another V10 car, or even something that's remotely sporty. The LFA being their only standout achievement however, you can really sense the desperation in trying to harken back to it. A central, round tach being hailed as a further refinement of the LFA's? Are we being serious? My 2002 Viper has a centre round dash. Is that influenced by the LFA, too? Of all the things to inherit from the LFA, why not the actual, important bit of "telling me which gear I'm in"? This stupid thing has eight - count them - EIGHT forward gears, operated by paddles. I'm sorry, but how the FUCK am I supposed to know what gear I'm in without a stick shift if you don't tell me? Is that not important information? Is somehow telling me I'm in "Drive" more important than which gear I'm in? Even my RX-8 with a stick shift tells me the gear number I'm in. I KNOW I'm in drive! How? BECAUSE THE CAR IS MOVING FORWARD.
Seriously, who needs this? Why does it do this? Who designed it to do this? Did ANYONE test drive this? Who greenlit this?
Seeing that the car is in "Normal" mode, I reach down to the knob in the centre console to try the other modes to see how the RC F's other modes changes its handling, only to receive a gentle slap on my wrist.
"Don't." "Why?"
"Because", she replies looking away, with a tone that signifies she's more than had her fill of frustrations, and then withdraws her hand, trusting I got the message. "Just review the car as-is, okay? I'll research about the modes and tell you later."
I remain silent, the frustration of wasting a second week in a row in crippled car, and having to regurgitate what I'm told from a book was giving me unpleasant reminders of my time in school.
"I take it you don't like this car?" "That obvious, huh?" "You're an easy read." "You're not."
She stays quiet, either not wanting to respond, or admitting that she's hiding a few things from me.
I decide to change the topic. "From one Lexus in nearly two years to two Lex...ii, in three weeks? Are we being bribed?"
"Yes."
"...what?", whatever flow of the conversation might have had up to this point breaks, along with my voice. I wasn't expecting something so... improper, or blunt, to come out of her polite and politically correct mouth. She's usually the one filing down my words in my reviews to make them somewhat palatable enough for a publication.
A strange, fleeting pulse of familiarity hit me when she said that. When have I met someone who introduces a car with a Nürburgring lap time...? Unable to place my finger on who, I decide it must've just been my imagination. Must be some weirdo... though, the itch of almost knowing is a hard one to scratch.
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The first race this week was held at the Ring. Of Bulls. Specifically of the red variety. While we ran the GT3 version of the RC F on the full layout, this week, we're only doing the short track, which is akin to going to the Red Light District for just a hug - we kn- -REDACTED- (Editor's note: we've been through this before, Lee.)
For all my grievances against this car on the road and looking at it, the RC F is... ten times worse on the track. All it takes is however long it takes to reach the first corner of whatever racetrack you're on to realise that this thing has no business on a racetrack, and that no one should think of this as a viable substitute for a real sports car. The Sport Hard tyres it came to me with does an abysmal job of trying to rein in all the speed and mass of the car, and while the Sport Mediums we ran for this week's meetup does an appreciable job of getting things more under control and feeling more natural, that's like adding sugar to a coffee to say it tastes good. You're just adding more of a good thing to a bad recipe. It doesn't change the fact that the recipe and the dish sucks. You might as well be drinking sugar water if you like the taste of sugar so much. I. Want. Good. COFFEE.
(Disclaimer: I am not sleep deprived this week. In fact, I have taken very good strides in fixing my sleep cycle, thank you for asking.)
The first thing that strikes anyone driving this, I'm sure, will be how heavy the car is, how front heavy the car is, how soft the front end is, and as a result, how difficult it is to just get nose of the car to hit an apex. If businessmen introduce themselves with a handshake and exchanging name cards, the RC F introduces itself to its driver with a crippling lethargy to stop, and heavy, inconsolable understeer. To perhaps remedy this, Lexus have fitted the RC F with a brake vectoring system, which came as a big surprise to me, as brake vectoring systems are usually only employed in AWD cars, unless you happen to be McLaren. So... does it work?
*sigh* ...not really.
Brake vectoring on the car makes it feel rather unsettled under braking, as the car always felt like it was on an arbitrary knife edge of snapping from chronic understeer to horrifying oversteer. This makes trail braking difficult, as the car is either understeering from its own mass and imbalance on hard braking, or sliding its rear end out with slight braking and sharp turning, with very little in between and leeway for smooth and aggressive corner entry. That is to say, it's very difficult to be precise in placing the car on trail braking. It seems to me like someone at Lexus took the rubbish saying of "fix understeer with oversteer" too literally, and the car never feels composed as a result.
The rear end breaking out under braking can admittedly be quite fun in the right corners, and the three corners of the edges of the triangle that is Dragon Trail Seaside fit the car's behaviour like a tailor made suit. The car's soft suspension setup, along with its nose heaviness, means it absorbs and chews up curbs with the greatest of ease, with enough feedback to let you know you've absolutely nailed an apex, but never upsetting the car, encouraging copious and unapologetic amounts of kerb abuse. Even the sausages of death on apexes at Red Bull Ring and Laguna Seca, designed to prevent corner cutting by potentially breaking the suspension of racing cars, the RC F simply sails over with nary a hiccup.
(The Red Bull Ring Sausage Test returns, and the RC F clears them at full cornering loads with flying colours!)
I have to admit that drifting into a corner and cutting corners without worry is something that can be ridiculously fun and instantly gratifying, but the brake vectoring system is sadly not without its flaws. You see, the brake vectoring in the RC F isn't as much a driver aid as it is a tool that attempts to mask some of the car's inherent understeer. There are some corners that just don't suit the use of brake vectoring, like high speed kinks that require just a slight dab of the brakes, where the car immediately wants to drift, or high speed sweeping corners, where you're not on the brakes, and brake vectoring is essentially useless. At these high speed sweepers like Seaside's triple esses in Sector 2, where brake vectoring is powerless, the gross lethargy of the obscene(ly heavy) brick you're driving is exposed and basked in full light at these high speed corners.
Unlike the ATTESA AWD system that this brake vectoring somehow reminds me of, the brake vectoring system in this doesn't really hold your hand. You can very much overdo your entry speed and/ or rotation into a corner, and the tyres simply give up in these situations, causing the entire car to go limp. And at that point, there really isn't much of anything the car can do to save itself and you from disaster, and it's only up to you and your sick drifting skillz bro to bring it back from the brink.
So, in other words, the only people that can drive the RC F "properly" are, Ken Block, Mad Mike, Tsuchiya Keiichi, and Vic_Reign93.
Maybe to most people who aren't motorsports fans, smoking your rear tyres in a big V8 RWD car is just something that looks cool, but even someone who only drifts unintentionally as a means to save himself when his grip driving skills fail him, like me, can tell you that this car simply doesn't drift well at all. The problem here is that this car's suspension and gearing doesn't facilitate drifting well, I find. (What I think is) 2nd is running out of breath bouncing off the redline, and shifting up into (what I think is) 3rd puts the engine to sleep. I also wish this thing redlined higher, as, contrary to what the American offerings might have conditioned you to believe, not all NA V8s have plateaus of torque. Power is all up top in the 2UR-GSE NA V8 of the RC F, and it cuts fuel right as you're getting to the good stuff. Not to mention, it's simply way too soft to really hold a drift for long, as the suspension is always looking to bury one side of tyres into finding grip, resulting in a awkward, twitchy transition from slip to grip.
At the end of the day, the very concept of sliding a car to rotate it into an apex is a flawed concept. Why do I say that? The very same reason why I don't drift as a sport: Unless you find yourself in an ultra exacting situation of being in a severely underpowered, extremely lightweight, low grip car in an extremely tight mountain pass and the skills to actually drift, not just slide, grip will always be faster than slip. And that holds true even in the RC F, where I held up both Vic and Nismo in our three way tussle at Seaside, me attempting to slide my way into the sharper corners, and Vic and Nismo driving normally.
In short, the car has several problems, gives you a tool that fixes maybe one of the problems, but the tool itself brings to the table MORE problems that you aren't given the tools to handle and solve. It's just a sad mess. The brake vectoring is at least not very intrusive or in your face in most situations, only showing itself when you really wring the crap out of it with aggressive trail braking, so I don't find it as detestable as most driving aids in modern cars.
The car also has an antiqued automatic gearbox, which I surprisingly don't find much wrong with. It shifts quickly and smoothly enough for a road, and even a sports car. Ratios aside, I never found it to hamper my driving experience. When I might start taking issue with it however, is if I knew how much power the auto box is sapping from the engine, but this means that it doesn't feel bad, which I value over any numerical achievements in a sport...y car.
All in all, the driving experience in the RC F is by and large, as grating as the hexagonal spindle grille on the front, and feels as precise and intuitive as Lexus' patented horrendous Remote Touchpad that they are for some dog poop reason adamantly insisting on, almost as if they were tasked to be a public exhibit of the sunk cost fallacy. Perhaps the biggest sign that "This is not a sports car" is that the harder you drive it, the more it falls apart. This is a car that requires you to know its (very low) limits, and conscientiously keep within said limits. It doesn't reward hard driving, nor does it behave with much composure once past those limits. It therefore is a car that needs to be babied around a racetrack, which is very much the antithesis of a sports, or even sportY car in my mind. Instead of feeling free and alive driving this "sporty" car, I feel like I'm back at school, doing my math homework in a very exacting way with very exacting methods with no leeway for deviance, under a very stern watchful eye of a teacher who won't hesitate to snap on me with every small mistake. Trust me, I'm Asian. I'm speaking from experience. And I'm sorry, but does that sound fun to anyone? Do you really want to get into a car on the weekend after a poop week at work, only to feel further governed, controlled, and metaphorically slapped across the face? I don't. And any car that makes you feel that way has no business being called a sports, or even a sporty car.
For Race 4 at Spa, I hopped into the RC F's biggest, closest competitor, both in the market and on the track. You know I'm sick of the car when I hop into something else to try to beat it in these weekly races.
*********************************************
"Is that your car?", asks Esther as she chances upon me overseeing the delivery of an Austin Yellow car.
"What? No! Why would you think that?", I blurt in retort, already on edge and caught off guard.
"Is that not a Singaporean license plate?"
"There are other M4s in Singapore aside from mine, you know?"
And for a while, the only sound in the paddock was the engine of the truck operating the hydraulics of the lift, and the distant shouting of the truckers coordinating the lowering of the M4 onto the ground. I'm not sure if I said something wrong, but something I said leading to awkward silence isn't new to me, even if it's something you never get used to.
Esther breaks down into a smile and... a... giggle? "You have the most important trait as a reviewer, I guess!" She... smiled! She giggled!
"What? What?"
"It's weird, though! Usually people are proud to drive BMWs", she continues, showcasing a super captivating smile through the gaps of her delicate fingers barely covering her mouth, now that her head has risen again from hunching over.
Am... am I still talking to Esther? Did she get possessed? "Did you research that?", I ask, bewildered.
She freezes for a moment as the smile quickly melts away. "Um, yes, of course...", she clams up, reverting back to the Esther I had known for so long.
I'll admit, I haven't driven the M4 either, having just taken delivery of one from a second hand sale. In fact, due to... circumstances, this is actually my first time seeing the car in person. My first kilometres in the 2014 M4 will be hard track ones, and I had about the entirety of one lap of Spa to get used to it before being recalled into the pits to prepare for race start.
Oops! I did it again! I put on hazards in a BMW!
As I pulled up in my pit box, my anxiety was worsened with me catching a glimpse of an upmarket LC500, donned in a camo livery that made it look like it was ready for some Tactical Espionage Action. I knew nothing else about the car however, so this is going to be... fun. The same sort of fun like -REDACTED- on a first date, awkward and dangerous as all hell, but let's see how "The Benchmark" handles herself jousting with others with an inexperienced Mr. Awkward in her.
While we're in the mood for admissions, I should also admit now that I... know nothing about this car I just bou- I mean, leased. It's down on both power and mass in comparison to the RC F; the 3.0L S55B30T0 twin-turbocharged I6 (seriously, who comes up with the names of these engines?) produces 430PS and 550N⋅m (405.9ft-lb), redlining at 8,000rpm, plopped in a car that then weighs 1497kg (3,300lbs) kerb. In comparison, the RC F's 5.0L 2UR-GSE NA V8 puts out 475PS and 528N⋅m (390.5ft-lb), redlining at 7,500rpm, and weighs in at... well, 1790kg (3,946lbs) kerb, in case I haven't kicked up enough of a fuss about it already. The M4 cost a hell of a lot more new than the RC F; 120k USD versus 95.3k. Hard to believe they're even in the segment, given the gigantic chasm of a price gap between the two, so the M4 had better be good.
Of course, that entire paragraph above is just me tarting up a spec sheet into a few sentences and then mashing it into a barely legible paragraph. The only thing I can tell you about the M4 that isn't on a spec sheet is that it has not one, not two, but THREE speedometers; an analogue one, a digital readout, and then a HUD that tells you nothing but the speed, I know nothing else about the M4 beyond that. Prepared to race this thing then, I am not.
Three speedos, and you somehow find the room to tell me which forward gear I'm in? You Germans are WAY too kind!
Still, there's a saying that goes something like, "A good car should instill you with confidence the first time you turn the wheel in it". Does the M4 deliver on that front?
Well... no. In fact, the exact opposite.
My initial impressions of the M4 is that it's like an overly excited puppy wagging its tail faster than your eye can follow. If you were to take any corner at anything above civil speeds, the car seems to go, "OH, WHAT'S THIS? IS THIS PLAYTIME?! PLAYTIIIIIME!" and starts wagging its tail... er-hem, rear end, left and right with incessence. Corner entry? I KNOW MY OWNER! HE MUST WANT TO DRIFT. DRIFT I SHALL! Corner exit? I KNOW MY OWNER! HE MUST WANT TO SLIDE. SLIDE I SHALL! Gear shift? I bet my owner will be SO SURPRISED and HAPPY if I... SLID OUT MY REAR END!
Unlike the RC F however, getting into a mess in the M4 is actually... fun. It has plateaus of torque across the entire rev range, and geared similarly highly to hold a drift. There's also... something... magical about the chassis, that makes it rotate about its dead centre like a swivel chair, and is just as easy to induce a spin, precise, and easily controllable with your body as your office swivel chair as well. No doubt the much better balanced chassis, with a "near as makes no difference" 50/50 mass distribution helps tremendously in that regard.
This week, we test and conclude - with evidence! - that a 2 door sports coupé is faster around a racetrack than a pickup truck. COTW Weekly Reviews and race videos, for only 10,000 USD per month! Common sense sold separately.
A weapon to surpass Metal Gear?!
I can understand these cars needing to be soft, for a bit of comfort and civility, even in their most aggressive settings. However, in the M4, the softness feels a bit... artificial. It seems set up like a ND Mazda Roadster in that it seems deliberately too soft, so that you can break the car sideways with low effort and enjoy sliding at speeds that won't immediately kill you, so that people of varying skill levels can look like a superhero to an undiscerning audience. In the hands of a racing driver, under the pressure of a race trying to perform however, that kind of behaviour is just disgusting. The M4 is one of those very rare cars where you have to continuously steer to keep straight. While the RC F can be buttoned down and well behaved if you treat it well and drive conscientiously within its limits, there seems to be nothing you can do as a driver to get the M4 to behave on the track. Its over eagerness to rotate rears its head if you're even somewhat in the upper half of its performance envelope. Is it fun? Absolutely. But not every day is a Sunday, and not every hour is playtime. I appreciate the fun of a puppy, but there are times when I just want to get things done, and the M4 simply doesn't cooperate with you when that time comes. It's so twitchy on corner entry and exit, I can hold a smoother, more consistent line in an air cooled 911 than this. And it's... stressful, to be in an M4 in a competitive setting, i.e. the antithesis of fun, ironically.
Metal Slug vs Metal... Gear?!
Speaking of unnatural feeling, I think the engine is a big part of why it feels unnatural, and not just because it pipes in fake engine noises into the cabin. Rather, it seems that BMW has deliberately limited the max power output of the S55 engine to create a flat table of a torque "curve".
You thought I was speaking metaphorically when I said the M4 had "plateaus" of torque?
Not even electric motors have curves this flat. A tabletop of a torque curve like this is a sure sign of limiting power output, by adjusting the airflow into the engine according to the revs; a common practice and result with race regulations that limit maximum power output in cars. A flat torque line like this is ideal in theory, but in practice, it... makes the car feel unnatural. In lower revs on the apex of a corner for example, you would be conditioned from driving internal combustion engines (ICE) to use more of the throttle pedal at low revs, but doing that in the M4 causes it to break out the rear end, because you have more torque in the M4 at low revs than you're conditioned for decades to believe, and this explains a bit of why the M4 is so tail happy all of the time. Personally, I hate that it does that. You could've had a more powerful, more natural feeling car, but NOPE, this is what you end up with instead, presumably to hide the power deficits of a highly boosted 6 banger. I could, in theory get used to the tabletop torque of the M4 if I had more time in it, by driving it like an electric vehicle (EV)... while having to change gears... but at this point, why would I want to drive an ICE like an EV? If I want the driving characteristics of an EV, I'd go drive an EV.
Square, we're not tools of the FIA, or anyone else.
Vic: What a pleasant surprise -- brother.
Rob: Save it. You're NO brother of mine.
Everything in this car feels bogus to me. And usually, when things feel phony, they're meant to give off a better experience than if the product were more honest, like making someone look prettier in Photoshop. In the M4 however, in trying to hide things from me, it just makes itself look like a complete clown. It all feels like a deliberate, conscious act. The suspension could easily be stiffer. The diff could easily be tighter. The engine could be allowed to breathe just a bit more. And just like an acting clown, it can be a little bit of fun at the right times, sure, but it's ultimately not something I'm likely to fall in love with. It's so... deliberately dishonest. Consciously crippled. And that makes it feel more like a product off an assembly line than something that feels like it has... a soul.
I returned to the M4 in the last race of our session at Yamagiwa. At the end of lap 3, having just been passed by Vic in his RC F, I gave him a bit of a push out of the last corner, to match our speeds going into the home straight. It was a bit of a rude and impromptu drag race test for me, as I wanted to see if the RC F could gap the longer geared, less powerful, but lighter M4. I pulled out of his slipstream for this, obviously, given that I was already on his rear bumper going out of the corner.
Surprisingly, and very counter intuitively, the M4 actually pulled up to the side of the RC F to about its door opening area by the braking point of T1. Very minuscule difference in straight line speed, but an advantage, nonetheless. With the RC F's standout, selling point being its hulking NA V8, an endangered rarity in today's market, and making more power on paper, one would think, and hope, that the NA V8 car would out accelerate the M4, IF NOTHING ELSE. It really makes you wonder how much power the auto box in the RC F is sapping away. I'd love to run a wheel horsepower test between these two cars to satiate my curiosity about a moot point, but alas, we didn't have the equipment on hand to do that.
SPOILER: After the Race
Surrounded by imaginary race queens and drowning in their high pitched screams and squeals of celebration, I got out of the car like a martyr awaiting long overdue celebration and recognition. The car was pouring smoke through the panel gaps in the bonnet, the distinct smell of engine coolant pungent in the open air pit lane. My assigned team of mechanics rush over to my car in the poisonous haze, signalling for me to release the bonnet latch. I do so, and leave them to stun the crowd with a volcanic display of smoke.
Wearing a self assuring smile, I beamed with the enthusiasm of a school boy who finally managed to get a B for math class as I looked over to Vic, similarly exiting his RC F, surrounded less by mechanics but even more imaginary race queens. The modest Brit was already trying to downplay his achievement of winning most of the races that week to his legions of adoring fans. The dented door panels now causing the door to refuse to close properly, I slammed the door harder to get it to close, in a not-at-all weird second slam, and waltzed up to Vic to let him know what I thought of his performance this week.
"What are you smiling about?", confronts Vic.
"Dude I almost had you!", I assert with a casual jab of the air in front of me. The imaginary crowd gasps and cheers at the audacity of the truth bomb I just laid on Vic.
"You almost had me?", he points to me, and then him, as he said that. "You never had me. You never had your car." He had the imaginary crowd eating out of his hand with every sentence, causing them to "ooh" and "aah" as though they were his punctuation. Some technical gibberish about intakes and clutches later, he says:
"It doesn't matter if it's by an inch or by a mile, winning's winning."
END SPOILERS
*********************************************
After the meet, I scheduled one more flight to Australia for you-know-what.
22.589 / 0:22.589
53.328 / 1:15.917
37.577 / 1:53.494
34.505 / 2:27.999
Top Speed: 267km/h (165.9mph)
Fuel consumed for 5 flat out laps: 26ℓ
22.356 / 0:22.356
52.997 / 1:15.353
37.285 / 1:52.638
34.290 / 2:26.928
Top Speed: 269km/h (167.1mph)
Fuel consumed for 5 flat out laps: 22ℓ
So... Lexus. Did you benchmark the M4 or not when you made the RC F? And if you didn't, why not? It is the class defining car! One whole second around one lap? That's an eternity even by road car standards!
(Disclaimer: I did the time attack only AFTER this week's races, so I really didn't know the M4 was that much quicker than the RC F when I brought it to this week's meet.)
I will admit, neither of those two laps were the cleanest, and I definitely had more pace in me with both cars than the results I posted, but I was getting SO ANGRY trying to get either of these two cars to set a clean, decent lap without any obvious mistakes, I even smacked the wheel of my M4 in frustration. And that's when I knew I had to stop, and the verdict decided.
What did I learn from my little time attack session at Bathurst, comparing the two cars directly on the same track, with the same driver, in the same conditions, back to back? Both cars are horrendous to drive for the exact opposite reasons: the RC F with understeer, and the M4, oversteer. Any enthusiast reading this might immediately default to, "well, oversteer is more fun". Na-uh. The snappiness of the M4 is SO BAD, I might actually prefer the RC F to drive in a time attack setting than the M4, even if it's a second slower per lap, even if it has more power and hits a lower top speed... which is utterly shameful. For as much as I loathe the driving dynamics of the RC F, I got out of the M4 and into the RC F with a big sigh of relief. It felt like a great weight was off my shoulders not having to continuously rein in an overly hyperactive child five times every corner exit. The RC F offers a very calming, very predictable drive in comparison, even with my complaints about its brake vectoring.
For as disgusted as I am with the RC F's stopping distances, the M4 uses largely the same braking points for every corner, in spite of being lighter, actually having carbon ceramic brakes, and only going marginally faster. I haven't any theories as to why that is so.
I find that the M4 has more consistent behaviour through the five lap stint I did for both cars, being the lighter car that consumes less fuel and tyres. The RC F feels vastly different over a short ten minute stint, and I never precisely know where its absolute limits are as a result, which I suspect is what made me lose my lead to Vic on the last corner of the last lap at Laguna; watching the video back, I was going at the exact same speed and braked at exactly the same point as the previous laps, but I still braked too early for that last corner. If you watch the video, you can tell Vic wasn't even expecting to make a pass at the point; he was forced into it.
So, at the end of this ramble, what are the verdicts on these cars? Beater or sleeper? Which is better than the other, and which would I recommend over the other?
I'll start by saying that both of these cars are Beaters to me. Keep in mind however, that this doesn't necessarily mean that they're bad cars for what they are and are meant to do; rather, it's just that I'm spoiled silly by bona fide sports cars, and I will readily admit that I am not the target demographic for this segment of luxury coupés. When I say that they're Beaters, it simply means that they don't offer me the driving experience that I'm looking for, which you may argue is an unfair evaluation, but I've had one luxury coupé surprise me before, and I rated that a Sleeper. It absolutely can be pulled off. I stand by my verdict of Beaters, because if you're going to make a 2 door coupé, you're offering the same practicality as a spartan, bona fide sports car for more money, and that's the standard that I'm going to hold these luxury coupés to when it comes to driving dynamics, as well, especially if companies are going to tout these things as "high performance vehicles" and boast about their handling.
I can't really comment on how both cars will be to live with, or how they'll coddle you in everyday, sensible driving. I daily an FD RX-7 for some context. Stuff like that isn't very important to me. What is important to me is that the cars make me feel alive when I'm pushing them. That they let me know all about themselves. That they communicate clearly with me at all times, and cooperate with me. I maybe even want them to bite me once in awhile if I push them too far. Above all else, I am a simple man who prefers simple, honest cars. And looking for that in this segment, or even in this era, is nigh impossible. I'm not ashamed to admit it: I'm an old man who isn't aging well, but I like what I like and I can't change my preferences.
Could you still have fun in these cars? Sure, I guess... but it will always feel like having intercourse with five layers of rubber on at all times; there will always be a bit of a disconnect, you won't really ever feel everything you want, you won't ever truly get to know your partner, and there will always be that bit of frustration in lamenting that lack of knowledge and communication. You won't ever feel a deep, meaningful connection with them. And maybe you'd forgive them for being a bit numb and bogus if they looked or sounded better, but they don't. I have better looking and feeling cars at home. (Esther PLEASE don't edit this out, I'm so illiterate I don't know how else to present this.) (Editor's note: okay, it's your reputation and account at stake.)
Lap times aside, I couldn't really tell you which is better on the track. That wholly depends on what kind of person you are, and what you prefer. Do you prefer a rock solid drive that can excite you a little if you absolutely asked for it? Or would you prefer something that continuously and endlessly encourages you to play, to be a hooligan? These cars are very different on the track, but they have their own unique set of strengths and weaknesses of equal magnitude, so I think the choice of which of these two to pick ultimately comes down to how the car behaves and how well it meshes with your driving style, the luxury features they offer, or entirely subjective stuff like "how well do the seats coddle you", "which of these two cars' styling do you prefer", "which of these two cars stigmatise you more to own and drive", or "which of these cars' infotainment you find less of a pain in the butt".
If you had me at gunpoint and forced me to choose which of these two cars I'd buy and live with, I'd kindly request you pull the trigger, but for argument's sake, I'd... most likely take the M4, simply because the remote touch thing in the RC F is an instant deal breaker for me, along with its styling. The M4 also has the advantage of being lighter on fuel, as well, and I think it has a bit more street cred. Its faults seem like easier fixes than those of the RC F's. You might have noticed that most of what I just said didn't have any relation to how these two cars drive. And that I think is the main takeaway from my week with these two cars: that people buy these cars not for absolute, bleeding edge performance, as evidenced by their showboaty driving characteristics and shoddy behaviour at their limits. People buy these things almost as a status symbol, to be comfortable, to impress dates, for going maybe 5mph above the speed limit on British B roads and pretending they're Ayrton Senna without actually being near the limits of the cars. That's just not the sort of person I am. These cars aren't for me. For the money these cars cost, I'd buy a Camaro ZL1 1LE, and have a healthy chunk of cash left over. Heck, I'd even go buy a GT86.
The RC F is ugly. It's not at all sporty. It's infotainment is an indecipherable mess. It's unpredictable to drive. It's powerful and thirsty, but doesn't put out numbers to match. It's not very practical. It looks and feels like a sumo wrestler trying to wield a Katana. I find very little to like about the RC F. Even its main selling point, its engine, isn't that good. I really don't understand who would buy this hunk of junk. While Lexus would like everyone to believe that the "F" in their "high" performance models stands for "Fuji Speedway", it feels more like the letter grade any car reviewer would give it, and perhaps also as a prompt for the public to pay their respects to the looming demise of this segment and the RC as a whole.
Dino LeeToday at 1:35 PM Doesn't look like much, mostly just how the auto gearbox selects gears, which is entirely out the window when you shift manually.
Erina MamiToday at 1:35 PM So it's not a big deal?
Dino Lee Today at 1:35 PM Completely irrelevant from the looks of it. Still would've liked to try it to make sure, though.
Erina MamiToday at 1:35 PM I thought you hated the car. Hard to believe you want to drive it more after your temper tantrum at Mount Panorama leaving the car on the track and walking back some 2km to the pits
Dino Lee Today at 1:38 PM I might hate it less if Sport+ Mode actually got its act together I hate not knowing a car entirely. Makes me feel like I didn't do my job. Then again this car is always going to hide things from me. It seems to have an Expert mode, and another unnamed mode, that Lexus doesn't even tell customers how to engage.
Erina MamiToday at 1:42 PM You're doing fine.
Dino Lee Today at 1:50 PM Thanks.
Erina MamiToday at 1:53 PM I quite like the cars, actually.
Dino Lee Today at 1:54 PM Really? Why?
Erina MamiToday at 2:06 PM I don't know. It's comfortable.
