Car of the Week Reviews—Ford GT '06

It's got a rear mid mounted NA V8 going through a 6 speed manual gearbox powering the rear wheels. It is everything critics of the Corvette and the current GT say they want, and it's made in 2005. Sporting a handsomely retro look of its own, does the 2006 Ford GT prove that everything in the past was indeed better?

FORD GT Workhorse one by heita--kun livery link

I can't speak of the general vibe in our weekly lobby as I wasn't there this week, but me personally, I find that driving the 2006 Ford GT is tiring.

The most apparent thing, and the thing that stayed the most prominent throughout my few test drives with the GT is the front end of the car feels rather floaty. Everything you attempt with the car, the front end will always be the limiting factor, and you'll be wrestling it at every turn, literally and figuratively. Mind you, this is a RMR car with 550HP (410kW) we're talking about here!

Braking for a corner, you have to slowly ease into the brake pedal to coax some neutrality back into the front end if the car is off neutral, such as when approaching the Andretti Hairpin of Laguna Seca—the car does squirm around quite a bit, after all. It's not quite pony car perilous, but it's not exactly 911 GT3 levels of tight, either. It forces drivers to be cognizant of where the weight of the car is at all times, and most importantly, to be gentle with it: slamming on the brakes like you would a racecar just causes the default Sport Hard tyres to start squealing at an alarming volume, massively elongating stopping distances even with ABS at default. I'd time travel into the future to buy the car to show you exactly what tyres it's supposed to come default with, along with its weight distribution, but the economy of the future has gone entirely down the crapper, and the world in its entirety with it. Don't blame me, blame human incompetence, greed, and divine karma.

*cough* Anyway, turn the GT into a corner, and you have to be intimately familiar with the exact whereabouts of the circumference of the front tyres' friction circles and be right on it at all times to get the front end to do anything, as the car feels completely nonchalant about turning unless they've weight over the front. The car's nose may not be heavy, per se, but it can feel incredibly inert without the right driving techniques. Even when powering out of a corner, throttle modulation is entirely for ensuring that the car doesn't understeer off the track and not at all for keeping the rear end in check. Certainly, there's more than enough power to break out the rear end shod with the same rubbish compound if you wish, as Vic will happily demonstrate to you, but if you're aiming for a fast lap, the rears will always be quite quiet. It simply isn't a car that is wont to slide, nor does it incentivise or reward drivers for doing so.

Thanks for your invaluable contribution every week to our club, Vic.

The mostly unwilling front end combined with its heavy steering makes the Ford GT is a proper workout to wrangle around a track, hence why I said it was tiring in the second paragraph. I could already feel my body hotting up and starting to sweat after just three laps of the relatively short Laguna Seca Raceway, and I really do wish it had a quicker steering rack (or god forbid me saying, a lighter steering) to help with that issue. Well, that, or a suspension setup that is just a tad rowdier, playful, with a bit of bite and knife edge to it to help it rotate into apexes. I get that there are barely more than 4,000 of these cars ever produced, each costing 145,000 USD when new in 2005 money, and thus no one wants the car to behave with that playful knife edge. It's just that, in the context of a video game, it's a bit... dull to drive as a result, especially when the car's famously delicious steering feel is completely lost in Gran Turismo.

Even though it's a powerful American V8, the driving experience of the GT really doesn't at all feel American to me. You have to be so clinical and measured in how you drive the car, setting it up for corners early and being technical with where you put weight on the car—a far cry from the slop- I mean, soft, showy, and explosive drives that I've come to associate with American cars. The engine is the one part of the car that feels properly American: ample low end torque, super satisfying to wring for every last rpm it can muster, and sounds properly mental throughout. And the styling of the car... ooh! Now THIS is how you do nostalgia in the modern day! Chef's kiss!

The Ford GT is a very unique car not just because it's a celebration of the company's centennium, not just because of who has owned one, but also because of how it drives. I daresay no American car drives quite like it, maybe not even the C8 Corvette, and certainly not its more modern counterpart. Having been put through some of the most prized pony cars of America's heyday, I can't agree at all that everything in the past is always better, but the 2005 Ford GT I think sits squarely in that sweet spot between the rowdy past and the sanitised future.

I just hope COTW has a better future.

Car of the Week Reviews—Mazda RX-VISION GT3 Concept

I feel less than zero shame in proclaiming to the world that I am a Mazda fanboy. I would --BLEEP--ing --BLEEP-- the --BLEEP--est of their --BLEEP--s while saying the --BLEEP--est things if it meant that I could work there someday, but one of the dirty and untrue things I'd have extreme difficulty saying is, "I like the RX-VISION".

The story dates back to 2015, when I was bored in a barely painted box doing security as a slave. Not that I was supposed to, but being on my phone helps to salvage some of my sanity and lets me feel like I've some semblance of free will left in my rapidly decaying soul. It was then that I saw a news article about Mazda unveiling the most dizzying concept car since the Furai, the RX-Vision. Following Mazda's breakthrough and jaw dropping "Kodo" design philosophy and bathed in its trademark Soul Red Premium Metallic paint, the RX-Vision not only got me excited about the future for the first time in a long while, but it also had very obvious and strong callbacks to the past as well! The front position lights were explicitly stated to mimic the panel gaps of the svelte pop up headlights that every RX-7 generation had, and the rear end is more an evolution of the FD RX-7's than it was its own thing. There are many that feel that Mazda hasn't made a splash in the performance car market ever since the RX-7 went out of production, and I do feel that Mazda has lost a big part of its identity ever since the RX-8 was discontinued in 2012 as well. Beaten to death and annoyed at clickbait "news" sites that propagate rumours endlessly ever since I could read, the fact that Mazda themselves have come out with a "new RX" made me make the most high–pitched squeal in that prison of toxic masculinity and brain dead slaves.

Photos from Mazda's website

Though, once the shock wore off and some rational thought began to reoccupy my brain, I began to slip back into my jaded, cynical, and miserable self, and that attitude sept way too easily into the pictures of the RX-Vision. For starters... no one at the time ever explicitly stated that the RX-Vision was powered by a Rotary Engine. I mean, yeah, it seems stupidly obvious from the name, as Mazda hasn't ever used the "RX" prefix on anything other that didn't pack their pièce de résistance, the Rotary Engine. But then again, I'm sure no Corolla owner ever thought their beloved car would become FF, nor did Mustang or Eclipse fans think that the names would be used on SUVs. Names are just a marketing thing. And besides, look at how long the front end of the car is! It looks like it could swallow a longitudinally mounted V12 up front! You don't need that kind of space for a 2 or 4 Rotor—that's the whole point of a Rotary Engine: it's compact size and lightness! And even if it did come with a Rotary Engine, how is that unnecessarily long wheelbase going to affect its handling? It's weight distribution? One of the traits that is common among sports cars I like is that they are simple—that everything on the car is out of necessity, towards a cause. Mazda traditionally hasn't been a very showy company, with none of that stupid fake chrome exhaust tips or piping in bogus engine noises into the cabin nonsense. And so this long bonnet of the RX-Vision just seems so odd, so un–Mazda like, even, because it makes the car appear to be just a styling exercise and nothing else. What it proclaims to be and what it appears to do is at such an odd conflict with each other. There isn't that sense of cohesion I love so much in my sports cars, which the FD RX-7 effortlessly flaunts. I may yearn with all my soul and every fibre of my being for Mazda to put into production a no compromise, all thrills, no frills, all out sports car in the vein of the FD RX-7 again, but I don't think I want the RX-Vision to be that car.

Any speculation of the RX-Vision's powerplant would be entirely quelled when, out of the blue, the RX-Vision appeared in Gran Turismo Sport in GT3 trim some five years later in 2020. That meant that the engine, at least in race trim, would be laid bare for the world to run, hear, and geek out over the specs: a Naturally Aspirated Inline 4 Rotor displacing 2,600cc, making peak power of 562HP (419kW) at 9,000rpm and peak torque of 541.2Nm (399.2lbf⋅ft) at 7,000rpm (the game specs and the specs Mazda gives differ slightly for some reason). Aside from the lower peak figures, you might be thinking that all those specs and numbers seem awfully familiar, especially if you're familiar with those of the 787B's. To help ease that feeling of doubt, allow me to present to you a comparison of the torque curves and sounds of the two side by side:

https://youtu.be/nui63osRqPE

Mm hmm. The engine of the RX-Vision GT3 Concept is simply a heavily crippled R26B of the 787B's, and it's not like Polyphony Digital got the sound of that right, either. "Next generation Rotary Engine, "SkyActiv-R"", my ass! And here I thought GT3 cars and engines are supposed to be based on what's (been) in production. Well Mazda, what say you? Feel like selling me a Roadster loaded with a NA 4 Rotor engine that can somehow pass emissions tests?

Renown RX-VISION GT3 Monochrome by Z4E_Midnight85 livery link

Check out MidnightRun85's liveries on their GTPlanet thread!

787B liveries on Mazda cars may be sickeningly abundant, but in the RX-Vision's case, the livery is more apropos than one might initially think, given the source of its cheaply recycled engine. You know how Yamauchi Kazunori said that "(Gran Turismo 7) will be a combination of the past, present, and future"? Yeah, I just wasn't ready or expecting the RX-Vision to be representative of the past on the cover art of the game.

If I sound like a jilted lover who has had their hopes and feelings played with and outright lied to, that's probably because it's not too far from the truth. And here I thought we were actually going to have a new Rotary Engine before ICEs go extinct! Mazda doesn't even have anything resembling production ready to put into their shiny new concept car, instead having to rely on something that is well over 30 years old at this point, the in–game sound of which had to rely on an aftermarket specialist in Defined Autoworks for! I mean, come on! Even someone who has written a raving review for a Diesel Demio in a racing game can't describe this whole situation as anything other than "utterly pathetic".

With the addition of this shiny new toy into Mazda's imaginary arsenal in Gran Turismo Sport, unseemly politics began to spring into action on PD's side as well: first, they slowly but surely crippled the Atenza Gr.3 out of contention with "Balance" of Performance, when the only track it had ever shone at was in Interlagos. For years, the Atenza had been stuck at 107% power and 104% mass, but with the addition of the RX-Vision, the Atenza gained 1% in mass twice in the next two updates to the game and with no accompanying compensation in power. The Atenza Gr.3 being a car I'm intricately familiar with, having ran it exclusively for years in Sport Mode and having done one of my only three racing liveries for, it felt like an old friend of mine was getting shafted right before my eyes, with me being unable to do a damn thing about it, and IT SUCKS. Then, out of nowhere, PD decided to drastically lengthen the pit stop time to de–incentivise pitting, which at first glance might seem to target only Miyazono Takuma and his insane pit strategies, until you realise that the RX-Vision's biggest selling point is that it's really good at holding onto tyres and fuel in a race. At the same time, the abysmal Atenza Gr.4, Mazda's only car in Gr.4, was buffed to become the third most powerful car in Gr.4 behind the hopeless GT-R Gr.4 and the completely irrelevant Veyron Gr.4, and even got a helpful mass drop! I mean, yeah, the Atenza Gr.4 still sucks and no amount of BoP can possibly save it, but at least Mazda can seemingly salvage some points in Gr.4 races now to vie for an overall Manufacturers' win with how competitive the RX-Vision GT3 is. While Mazda has yet to win a Manufacturer's Championship overall, they can at least make it onto the grid now... via a guaranteed placement granted by PD, costing one other more deserving manufacturer to lose out.

Honestly? As a fanboy, I really wouldn't mind all these politics, but that's only IF the RX-V was a real car that people can buy. I know it makes little to no sense to say this in the context of a video game, wherein nothing is real, but... I don't know, fictional cars just disproportionately bother me, especially if they prove to be dominant in races. It feels like a cheap cop out for manufacturers to not need to try to actually build something better, something real, that drivers on both sides of the virtual divide can enjoy. At this point, the RX-V almost feels like Mazda telling people like me, fans of the Rotary Engine, "shut up, we hear you, suck on this and leave us alone".

It's phony. It's political. It's two of the things I despise the most in anything, be it a car or a person. Can the way it drives redeem it, though?

The RX-V is noteworthy for being one of the very few, if not only car in Gr.3 that doesn't simply adopt the thoughtless default suspension setup of Gr.3, with it coming in MUCH lower than the standard 70mm (2.76in) front and 80mm (3.15in) rear ride height of Gr.3 cars, being set instead at 60mm (2.36in) front and 70mm (2.76in) rear, better balancing out its rather odd 48/52 F/R weight distribution. However, that just makes it so much more uncontrollable over kerbs, and it's horrendously afflicted by microscopic road imperfections that I never knew were there when driving other racing cars, almost as if the suspension doesn't have enough stroke to absorb the ebbs and flows of a cleanly paved racing circuit. Despite having bespoke ride height settings, everything else, from spring rates, dampers, camber, toe, differentials, and downforce, are straight copies and pastes from the Gr.3 defaults, making me think the ride height adjustment is for visuals only and nothing else—just like the 2015 Concept Car on which it's based. That means it also suffers from the sudden snappiness of many maladjusted real world racecars in this game, with its limits very suddenly coming to the driver instead of the driver gradually approaching the limits of the car. The rear weight bias also makes the car rather tail happy, even after a handling adjustment made to the car after its inception, and the long wheelbase of the car really doesn't seem to help that at all.

Maybe because the Atenza Gr.3 fits like an old glove I've grown into, but I personally find the big boi Atenza with its unbalanced and suboptimal sedan silhouette powered by a 2.2L Inline 4 boosted to high heaven to be an easier drive than the NA, bespoke, svelte sports car that doesn't even have to bear the burden of existence. And remember, with the Atenza being bopped out of contention to make way for this, doesn't that just make Mazda a weaker brand as a whole? How does anyone defend this?

While RMR cars can use that oversteer to tactically slide and rotate into the apex of a corner, the front engined, long wheelbase Mazda finds that task a lot more daunting and unintuitive. Ask anyone who's driven a RMR car, and I'm sure they'll tell you that there is simply no replicating the way an RMR car rotates into a corner. Having a slight rearward weight bias then, seems to me to distill the worst of an RMR layout without obtaining any of its strengths. And it puzzles me so much as to why the proportions and resultant weight distribution of the car are designed as such from a blank slate with no restrictions in reality!

I've been wondering about the RX-Vision's perplexing proportions ever since I first saw it in 2015, but seven years or so later, I think I may finally have a plausible explanation for it: the RX-Vision was never meant to be a Mazda to begin with, let alone house a compact Rotary Engine. When Toyota unveiled their GT3 car during this year's Tokyo Auto Salon, not based on any model in their current lineup, many quickly connected the dots and saw the RX-Vision underneath the generically named Toyota. Hell, it might even be a full EV sold under the Lexus brand! Quite a departure from a lightweight, nimble, pure sports car as Mazda had seemingly led us to believe the RX-Vision to be. Letting Ford own 33.4% stake in your company just to survive? Please do! Platform sharing with the second biggest car manufacturer in the world to cut costs? Go right ahead! But a Rotary Engine sports car? That's your identity, right there! That'd be like sharing a diary with a friend in school—you just don't do that. Nobody does that!

I just find it in such bad taste for Mazda themselves to fan the flames of hope for a Rotary revival, only to be so completely let down as a fan. Maybe the RX-Vision is a sexy car to most. Maybe most people won't notice or mind that its sound and power curves are recycled from the 787B's. But as someone who deeply loves the brand and especially their Rotary Engined sports cars, the RX-Vision is a bad tease at best and insulting at worst.

Car of the Week Reviews—Volkswagen typ2(T1) SambaBus '62

Volkswagen typ2(T1) SambaBus Review

I've taken more heart thumping craps than racing this thing.

...yeah, that's the end of the review. What else do you want me to say? Damn thing's literally a bus! With 33 whole horsepowers! You'd get a lot more out of the car- I mean, bus, in the Livery Editor and the Discover section than going full tilt anywhere in this, which you will need to on any leg of travel that doesn't involve a free fall off a tall cliff, with a 0-60 time of "oh god please make it before my pubic hair turns white". IF you manage to even hit 80km/h, the Sambabus can only pull a dizzying 0.8 lateral g on what should be its default tyres, Comfort Hards, enough to perhaps make your easily carsick grandma a little queasy and politely ask you to take it a tad bit easier, lest she can't concentrate on knitting your pink sweater with a giant red heart back in the many passenger seats of this thing.

藤原とうふ店（自家用）　大量発注用 by gibuson50s livery link

"Tune it", you say? It maxes out at 98HP and 930kg (73kW, 2,050lbs), which just makes it as murderous as an air cooled 911 with half its aptitude. Even if you were to... um... time travel into the future, it can't be wide bodied. It can't take any aero parts. In fact the only thing it can take is a pair of tow hooks, because gosh knows that's how it'd achieve its fastest speeds. At this point, only gosh knows if you can put a 911 Flat 6 into it. You'd think that all that space in the bus would be ideal for storing bottles of Nitrous, the most powerful of which will transform your humble camper van into an intercontinental ballistic bomb bottle, topping out at an eye–watering 112 on the back straight of Tsukuba... kilometres per hour. In freedom speak, that's almost 70mph! Oh and by the way, there isn't even a bonnet view on this, so good luck to approximately the half of you alpha serious sim racer types that race in bonnet view.

Casebus by ziggozago livery link

It's not meant to race. Trying to race this thing is like trying to see which brand of rubbing alcohol evaporates the fastest—I mean yeah, you can do it, but it's completely missing the point, and is just about as exciting as well. Your time would be much better used mindlessly scrolling through Instagram, which I found myself doing to salvage some sanity in me when we let an absurdly large vertically-placed rectangular prism vote, and wound up winning. So here, instead of a tune to fix a bad car, I'll share some Instagram accounts I follow to make a bad life decisions easier to swallow, such as showing up to race this thing:

https://www.instagram.com/katu_fc3c_nd5rc/

https://www.instagram.com/yuuki_safd7/

https://www.instagram.com/yukn_tanpopo/

https://www.instagram.com/m.zelo.m/

https://www.instagram.com/mojack_fd/

https://www.instagram.com/ashleymiche/

https://www.instagram.com/poissons_219/

https://www.instagram.com/yanhibi0221/

https://www.instagram.com/hatachan524/

https://www.instagram.com/hoshina_r18/

SOME of them may not be car related.

Car of the Week Reviews—BMW M6 GT3s 2016

I stole a quick peek at the lock screen of my phone just before stepping up onto the patio. The stinging light in the near complete darkness painfully pierces my eyes, telling me it's 1:57 in the morning of race day. I'm about to probe my editor, Esther, about what the next Car of the Week is going to be, the location of the first race, and perhaps to urge her to get a move on. Usually, she's the one who's rushing me as my procrastination jams all my previous week's writing into the last few hours before a flight for the following week's car. It's really not like her to drop the ball into the crapper and flush it down with lava like she has. She hasn't replied to anyone's emails, and her phone has been completely offline. It's almost like she saw the imminent change in management and bolted like the wise woman she is.

My right index finger approaches the doorbell, and I hesitate for a moment. I know she doesn't sleep, like, ever, but her family? Come to think of it, I know nothing of her family. Could I imagine a family of Esthers? Ooh. I shiver from chills ricocheting up and down my spine at the thought, and pressed the doorbell before I drown in my own thoughts and imagination. Not when I'm not at my desk.

I know I just said she doesn't sleep, but did she really have to get the door in 2.7 seconds? Even Vic takes longer to get to me on race days. Her hair frayed in an unkempt mess and donned in her crumpled sleepwear, it was the first time I had ever seen her this... unguarded. Unprepared. I didn't even recognise her for a moment. Had the lights in her house been on, I might have noticed her horrendous eye bags sooner, too.

"Bro?"

Uh, scratch that, does she have a twin I never knew about?

"Esther?"

No reply. She just stood there, dazed and motionless.

"Esther, is that you? What happened to you? I tried contacting you the whole day with emails, calls..."

"Oh, it's just you... Lee."

"Are you okay?"

"Mm? Yeah, I'm fine..."

"Urgh Esther what the hell...", I muttered as I stormed in without thinking, feeling my way around her walls until I found the light switches and flicked them on. And sweet baby Buddha the scene that greeted me when light flooded the house was... ghastly. Dirty dishes, taps left running, even broken furniture just strewn about... it's almost like someone had just ransacked her place, though all the doors and windows were still firmly closed, and even some valuables were still laying in plain sight. The only thing that looked somewhat normal was a small, neat collection of trophies on a wall mounted shelf, under which Esther's familiar eleven inch laptop was displaying the draft of my NC1 "nsx" Gr.3 review, staring blankly back at me almost untouched from when I submitted it. The neatness amidst the sea of disarray and chaos made it look almost like a small altar.

"Do you need anything?", she asks in a daze.

"That's MY line!", I shouted back at her, taking myself aback with how angry I got, immediately regretting raising my voice.

"Why are you here?"

"Why? Oh I don't know... checking on my colleague to see if she died? Unreachable via emails, phone completely offline, my review not published, and I need to know what the next Car of the Week is!"

"Mm? Car of the Week...? Oh, Car of the Week is taking this week off, haven't you heard?", she mumbles, almost to herself, eyes adrift.

I'm concerned for her, but at the same time, panic began to creep into my soul from being in this house with her. Us Asians, taking a week off? Only when we get offed! It's almost like I just stepped into a haunted house, and she had been possessed by something. Taking a moment to collect myself, I began to think of other ways to approach the situation.

"I dropped by the office yesterday. Racer handed me the keys. I just need you to arrange the flights."

"He- he did?"

"Yep."

"I thought I made it clear that you're NOT to drive the M6 GT3!", she erupted in a lethargic furor. Ahh, so that's the next Car of the Week. "I thought I told him! That piece of-!"

I grabbed her by her shoulders. "Look, just go get some sleep, okay? I'll book the flights myself, and I'll find a car somehow, okay? Just-"

"I thought you already had the keys from Racer?"

"To the kingdom, yeah. How'd you think I found where you live?"

She just sighs and almost falls backwards. I'm sure she would've if I didn't have her shoulders held.

"Please be careful... that car is dangerous", she whispers before passing out. Oh gosh... I still haven't asked her how to refill the printer in the office!

***********************************************

Having blown thrice the weekly budget on two 2016 M6 GT3s because I didn't know which was the exact car to be tested, and having a third car in tow for comparison, each with their own team of dedicated mechanics and engineers assigned their own... social workers of their choosing, all that looked missing from the picture was a few Metal Slug tanks, crates of Heavy Machine Guns, enough narcotics to OD the entire crew, and Esther the editor helming the logistics of it all as the heavy lift choppers buzzed through the air towards Sagrada, where the first race would be held. Upon touching down however, I was informed by rather meek and trembling locals that the nearest racetrack was half an hour away on good days, named "Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya", which doesn't even come close to rhyming with the "Sardegna" on my note- oh.

While the pit crew, mechanics, engineers, and social workers dwindled their thumbs waiting for the choppers to refuel and the pilots of said choppers to rescind their labour strike now that they found out they have to fly to Italy, I figure the downtime gives me a chance to really take a look at the cars.

From what I can gather from the engineers, these nearly identical cars have quite the history, in that the blue car was finished 22nd overall in 2016's 24 Hours of Nürburgring by someone called "Yamauchi Kazunori", whom I can't say I've ever heard of, but I'm told is of utmost, godlike importance. But, if we are to talk strictly about what's present and tangible, I have some history with the car, too: I wrote it off when I tested the 2011 Z4 GT3 back in Week 153, citing its spikey power delivery from the twin turbo S63 V8 causing unwelcome chaos every corner exit, while the enlarged dimensions of the car really doesn't do the car's agility any favours. Yeah I mean, sure, it appears to be the machine of choice of some very important, influential, and skilled people, from Yamauchi–sama, Nicolas Rubilar, and even COTW's resident Stig, Vic, but the car and I simply don't mesh. Maybe I'm just not skilled enough, or maybe I'm irreversibly spoiled by the Z4, but I never really got the appeal of the M6 after my short time with it at Interlagos comparing the two cars.

The white car? Other than lacking in the fog lights and fender vents of the blue car, I really can't tell you what's so different about it. Having the exact same power, mass, dimensions, and even BoP, I began to feel incredibly ripped off by my dealer insisting that these two cars are technically different and serve very different purposes. That feeling grew tenfold when I finally put two and two together and realised that I had blown thrice the weekly budget on two cars I had already made up my mind on, and is about to blow even more to reroute the entire convoy to Italy.

Hoo boy, Car of the Week is in good hands.

***********************************************

Now in the correct continent and racetrack, I arrived at Sardegna's race course complex to the baleful wheezes of several twin turbo M6 GT3s being run full tilt. Unable to wait for me, the crew had already started the first race in my absence. Nice to know exactly how much it is you're needed at your workplace, isn't it? And what's all that bullcrap about the drugs being a "tradition honed with time?" What, like my virginity? I can't wait to be rid of that!

TMI? Ah well, Esther will edit it out if she feels it.

The race at Sardegna ended quickly enough, with me having arrived just in time to catch a glance of the closing moments of Vic's unprecedented victory as I unloaded my cars and crew into my pit box, strewn with confetti, candles, smashed wine glasses, streamers, popped balloons, and questionable white cream all over, and not just on the floor, either! Even though the race has ended, the serenity of the silence at the track was not to last, as once the cars were done doing battle, it came the turn of the humans to do bicker; a kid whose racing suit bore a Finnish flag rose a dispute regarding being shafted by a grandfather without prior consent, using eloquent, concise, and dignified descriptions such as "dirty! dirty! dirty!" to make his case. The grandfather in question was not his own, but rather, one of ours; Rick, whom I have raced cleanly, fairly, and hard with several times every week prior to this one, and has never gotten shafted by him thus far. So I, ready to prove to the crew that they have a capable organiser/ leader in their hands, got off of my underwear covered butt, put on at least the bottom half of my racing suit, and prepared to Sweet Chin Music him across Italy's boarder back to whence he came, the worst crime I can be prosecuted for would be illegal dumping, seeing as I'm not entirely sure anyone in Finland would have the gall to accept the kid as one of their own. Child abuse? Clearly, his parents signed a waiver to absolve us of any liability because they themselves are sick of the kid; in what other scenario can a kid pilot a GT3 machine in race conditions without any wit- I mean, unsupervised?

Artist's impression.

Yes, in addition to weekly car reviews, Car of the Week also offers a wide range of... peripheral services, so that we can actually afford to bring you the weekly car reviews. I mean, come on, you're not really here for the cars, are you?

With me one foot already in the air, Vic teleported to the kid as quickly as he approaches anyone else on a racetrack. Helmet in hand, the pasty skinned alien sat down with the kid and asked him in a calm and professional manner to explain exactly what had happened on the track a very convincing display of mastery over the English language. To be frank, I have no idea what his interrogation yielded, nor do I know if we finally found a use for Rick's crates of Jack Daniel's now that he's quit drinking by waterboarding the kid with it as I really wasn't interested in the whinging of a sore loser that hasn't the drive or pace to pick himself back up after an on track mishap. Rather, I was caught in my own thoughts about my upcoming role as the organiser of the world's most expensive car magazine. I mean, yeah, it sounds great, especially at "only" 28 years old, but I only have a few days in which I share the same numerical age with Vic before he turns 29, and well, you wouldn't guess it looking at how we both handle work incidents. Clearly, I have a lot yet to learn from him, not just about driving fast on a track, but also ironically enough, people skills... like how to kick someone while making it look like it's their fault, while leaving no traceable DNA evidence!

After a very quick, but no less diplomatic vote, the crew agreed to make yet another drop by the nearby Croatia and its stunning racetrack, Dragon Trail Seaside. I don't know how Vic knew, but the kid loathed the track! After yet another round of whinging that even racing spec headsets and earplugs can't soften, the kid suddenly grew serendipitously silent all of a sudden. While the Finnish kid seemed to have... finished, I was finally able to concentrate on getting a feel for the M6 on the now empty track. The first proper corner of Sardegna A in reverse is a tight 90° right hander barely two lanes wide, which the big boi M6 clearly doesn't like. What makes me say that? Well, I looped it round on the corner exit of the first corner I attempted at speed with the car, causing all my memories of the car at Interlagos to come flooding and materialise in an instant. I don't have any photos or videos of the incident, so you'll just have to take my word for it. The camera crew were busy with a "Superkick Party" or something back in the pits post race. I wonder what sort of substitute drug they've found to that has the same "kick" as the expensive ones I screwed up the delivery of?

If the land of the Rising Sun has a blue devil called the "Devil Z", and the land of freedom incarnate has a blue devil called the... "Blue Devil", then Germany's blue devil is most definitely this M6 GT3. I shuddered mere millimetres away from the all too close brick walls of the Italian village roads at the thought of all the souls the car must've claimed, and now it's my turn to try to outrun what seemed like fate.

Why hath thou chosen to do this to us, oh dear Robbo?

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Away from the claustrophobic confines of tight brick walls that line the public roads of an unassuming Italian Village, and into the warm, plush, safe, and welcoming depths of the ocean floors of Croatia. If I wreck here, at least we can take a convincing photo of the car to advertise as "never crashed" after we fish it out of the ocean and have it technically not be a lie. My first time getting the elbows of the M6 out would be here at Dragon Trail: Seaside, and to brown nose their new organiser, the crew has not only put on a monochrome livery to distance my car visually from the inauspicious blue, but has also graciously agreed to let me start on podium in a feeble attempt to outrun fate—both mine and that of those around me.

(Huh, I just realised that "brownie points" is a very clever euphemism for brown nosing, which in turn is euphemism for- ooohhhhh..........! *snaps fingers* Being in power is enlightening!)

Despite being twin turbocharged, the M6 launches best with traction control, allowing me to jump into the lead off a grid start. With me leapfrogging into first off the line, the option of pussyfooting my maiden race in an unfamiliar car had a quick burial at sea before it had a chance to die, and if I didn't want to similarly drown in the chaotic mid pack scuffle, then I'd just have to take this lead and run like hell with it!

Despite of being the eighth heaviest Gr.3 car with BoP applied, the car certainly didn't feel it in the braking zones, with the brakes and tyres biting ferociously with the slam of the left foot. From there, I gingerly felt out the last few hundredths of the M6's handling envelope while riding the kerbs that DTS requires drivers to do, and that's when I found out that the M6 is almost like a king sized bed! It comfortably soaks up and damps out these uneven road surfaces! No matter the odd angle or reckless speed I approached these kerbs at, the M6's suspension is supple enough to take it all in its stride, while remaining firm and assertive in the twisties, meeting even hard to reach apexes in the deepest of crevices. Whatever the mood or position, there simply isn't an itch the M6 can't scratch. Firm, yet supple, like the rears of our social workers, mm! Bitey, too!

Hatsune Monochrome BMW M6 Gr.3 by kimchiisgoood livery link

After just a lap or two of Seaside, I began to realise that perhaps I had been too hasty to write off the M6 when testing the Z4, because aside from an all too pokey power delivery, the M6 is, dare I say it, quite the brilliant car!

With the next race taking place at Circuit de la Sarthe, the battleground of the world's most grueling 24 hour race across 13.6 kilometres (8.5 miles) of wide open country roads, la Sarthe is the textbook given example of a circuit which favours high powered, high speed machinery, which is right up the M6's alley. I then thought, what better track to bring a handling focused car like the 2011 Z4 GT3 to see just how lacking it is in a straight line in comparison to the M6, like everybody keeps saying?

GSR初音ミクBMW 2012 0号車 by s2000-elise livery link (GTS)

Racing Miku 2012 by りょうち(s2000-elise) livery link (GT7)

If the Z4 is supposed to have some sort of straight line speed deficit against the M6, then it sure as hell can't be found on the start line, where I had to immediately dart around the bogging and wheelspinning M6s, gaining three positions essentially for free. With both the Z4 and M6 being powered by 4.4L V8s, you'd think the M6 is fueled by malnourished pig piss or something if you saw these cars launch side by side. Of course, once the M6es got up to speed, they started to slowly reel back in my Z4, but the three free positions were mine to keep going into the first braking zone of la Sarthe, where the lighter Z4 has a pronounced advantage over the M6 despite the latter's stopping prowess not being lacking.

Of course, I was never going to be able to hope to hang onto any positions around la Sarthe in my cornering car, the Z4. I just wanted to see for myself how much of a straight line deficit I had in comparison to the much lauded M6es, and possibly to compare the fuel consumption rates between the two 4.4L V8 engines. And so my mission at la Sarthe was simple: I wasn't there to win. I was there to poke as many bears as stiffly as possible and see how much I can get away with before they start poking back.

A lap later, I found my bear.

To address the purple elephant in the room, the Z4 isn't 4C levels of slow, wherein the car can just about keep up with a competitor in its class while sitting in slipstream; the Z4 very much can gain on, and even overtake the M6 if sat in its younger sibling's slipstream. In fact, with the M6's shaky at best corner exits out of the Mulsanne Chicanes, the near effortless corner exit the Z4 offers does a really good job of patching up its straight line speed deficiency, even on a straight as long as Mulsanne. Time and again I ran side by side with Monty's M6, with neither of us getting an advantage pronounced enough to shove one of our rear ends in the nose of the other. Neither of us were driving neatly, granted, but for all the talk about how the Z4 was shafted by BoP, I really was expecting to just get dropped like a bad ex and left for dead, but I wound up having a stick fight of my life at Le Mans with a handling stick!

Oh, and as for fuel consumption? Identical pixel for pixel as far as I can tell. Explain that to me!

Back to the topic at hand though, the M6 is a very high level all rounder. As far as its shortcomings go, I can only really name its explosive power delivery out of low speed corners, which might just end up being praise for its powerplant if anything. Even with TCS1 and fresh Racing Medium tyres, the car will step out on you if you give it too much gas out of a slow corner way before other Gr.3 cars even hit their strides. In that regard, it drives very differently from the rest of its Gr.3 brethren, including the Z4 GT3, and as a result, you can't simply take old habits and conditioned behaviour with you into the cockpit of the M6; it demands to be driven in its own way, because it's its own thing. It takes a lot of getting used to, and savant levels of familiarity with the car to get it pointed in the direction it's heading. It's not a car I'm very flirty with their limits with, and I've had best results simply playing it a little safe and giving it gas only when the car is mostly straightened out. It's a car that has a very high skill ceiling if you will, and is always a high risk, high reward prospect in my estimation. But, if you were to spend the time to get to know the bear well, it certainly has the tools and credentials to be a richly rewarding experience, and may even nab you a surprise win.

Needless to say, it's a Sleeper. And that's in spite of the fact that it already gets all the attention in this game as the poster car for BMW.

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Esther sighs heavily as her head falls down into a cocoon of papers, most of which a reddish pink in colour. "Gosh, your sense of humour sucks", came her voice from the canopy.

"I uh... haha, what do you mean?"

"Stop trying to be like Brad, for gosh's sakes. Even he doesn't blow three mill a week!"

...craaaaaap.

"Listen, Lee...", she exasperatedly recoils onto the back of her chair. "I don't know how to tell you this, but not everyone does what Brad can do. You can't just waltz in and try to copy everything he does—poorly at that—and expect no one to notice!"

Am I... getting fired from my job?

"The blatant, stupid mistakes, the narcotics, the... what did you call them, social workers, they're so not you! This isn't what we wanted you to become when we chose you to be our organiser!"

I'm... going to be worse than out of a job, aren't I? I'm going to be butt naked on the street, begging for all eternity after my soul gets damned to hell, just to scrape together pennies to pay back that three mill, aren't I?! I... I'm not going to have to sell my pristine RX-7 for four times its list price to some dubstep listening twerp to put a pink Anti Social Social Club livery and tacky wings on it, am I?! Anything but that! Oh god!

She takes a moment to suck in a deep breath to bellow out another gale of a sigh that disturbed her fringe and the paperwork in front of her equally. "You- we... can't..."

She takes a moment to rage snatch some papers off of the table, slamming her palms around trying to find something. She finds it, and continues.

"...just walk into new leadership while bringing old habits and conditioned behaviour, and expect you to not bite or snap. You're your own person, your own being. And we chose you to be our organiser because we saw that passionate nerd trying to keep us afloat, not the drug slinging, superkick happy idiot you're trying so hard to be. I, we, want to get to know you more, because you have the tools and credentials to be a sleeper."

"I...", was speechless. I've... never felt this... exposed before. And also accepted at the same time.

"Am I speaking in a language you can understand yet?", she stares sternly with one eye past the crumpled draft.

"Thank you", was all I could find the intelligence to utter in this overwhelming moment.

"Gosh!", she flings that hapless sheet of paper onto the pile of legal notices and the rest of the pages of my draft. "And another thing! There's a factual error I'd like to point out to you in your M6 review!"

That's... actually a first, wow.

"The M6 hasn't killed anybody yet. Understand?"

"Uh... oh kaaay?"

"And seriously, of all the drugs you could've bought, Zopiclone? Do you even know what that is? Those are sleeping pills! How are you going to apologise to Rob for knocking him out?!"

"I'm sorry, I thought... I saw a few bottles while cleaning up, and I thought those might have been from the time you worked for Brad, and..."

A flash of anger contorts her face into something monster like, rendering her completely unrecognisable, but it was so fleeting that I thought I might just have imagined it. The silence between us lingered for infinitely longer than that, as neither of us knew what to say.

"You're... not wrong," came her shaky reply. "It is. I've had insomnia since... that time, yes."

"Did you sleep well that night?", I ask.

"Mm.", she affirms. "First time in a while, actually. Thanks."

"Well, it's time for me to get some sleep of my own." I pause to stretch and yawn. "I haven't slept since."

"Oh no you don't.", came her coy reply. "You still owe us three mill."

"Oh come on! I still have my real job, and that thing on March 4th!"

"Sleep is for the weak", she proclaims, as she tosses two key fobs across the table to me, one bathed in Soul Red Crystal, which belongs to me, and the other, in bare carbon. "Don't say I didn't tell you the car early next week."