To all the Auto & Motorcycle Mag's: A RANT

[fdcg27]

Originally Posted By: hattaresguy
I believe proper road cars get worse as people try to stick them around a track faster.

As I have said before GT cars are where its at, and this is why Aston Martin even though they win none of the mag article comparisons with numbers, sells. They make great road cars for the road.


I believe you're right.
Anyone who's gotten to go at least a little fast on a track in what they find to be a good road car will probably find the car not nearly as satisfying on a road course.
The qualities that make for a good and entertaining car on a billiard table smooth track are not the same as those that make for good ride and handling on a real road.
A car extensively modified for track day use will not likely be a whole lot of fun to drive any great distance on the road.
A new car with an option package biased toward track use will likely be harsh and unplesant for anything more than a few miles on a real road.

 

[jimbrewer]

I quit reading those magazines a long time ago.

For some reason they like long discussions about the quality of the plastic on the inside of the car. Does the car handle well, but have "low" quality plastic? Perhaps you would be better off with a lesser car with "high" quality plastic, whatever that is.

How many of them discuss visibility for even a line or two? That's a considerable real-world issue, but you would never know it to read a car magazine. Instead, they weave some kind of adolescent reminiscence in to the article, like anyone cares.

I don't blame them for running performance cars around the track. What else can you do to get an objective feel for handling at the limits? The problem is that an expert driver can basically compensate for a poor suspension, so the bad suspension cars get artificially good times compared to the cars with good suspensions.

For advertising reasons, they can't tell the truth about a car, except in the most oblique way. The only way they can do that is when the new generation car comes out. Then they are allowed to have a paragraph or two blasting the prior model for things you never heard about before, so long as the new model "cures" the problems with the old model that they never mentioned before.

 

[Norm Olt]

How's about "I couldn't get my phone to connect!" or "The Touchscreen is too small & too sensitive"?

WAAAAAA!