My car buddy Sage is a serial car purchaser; he’s always got one vehicle on the market while searching for his next automotive fling. Thus, when I learned that he just added a 2000 Porsche Boxster to his stable, I knew I needed to drive his first-generation 1991 Mazda Miata (NA) before it was sold… Continue reading Review: 1991 Mazda Miata (NA)
The Ford Focus ST was a media sweetheart when released, winning comparison tests against the Mazda Mazdaspeed3 and VW GTI. Given all the accolades, I've been curious to see how this affordable one-car-to-conquer-all (by which I mean one car which can handle both daily duties and sporting drives) would feel from behind the wheel. When… Continue reading Review: 2013 Ford Focus ST
This Sunday I had my first chance to autocross my 2011 BMW M3 at El Toro airfield. While I had done an autocross in Oakland many months ago, it was a poor chance to feel out the car as the course was very short (maybe 40 seconds long) and pretty slow. Today’s El Toro event… Continue reading Long Term: 2011 BMW M3 at Autocross
I just took my 2011 E90 M3 to the track for the first time. The tarmac I chose was Laguna Seca, one of America’s most revered race tracks and also a circuit I know well from many prior visits in my old Mitsubishi Evo IX MR. I had a grand time in the M3, but… Continue reading Long Term: 2011 BMW M3 at Laguna Seca
My car-buddy Sage has rented a 2004 BMW M3—known to the BMW community as the E46 M3—for the day. It’s a coupe with gray paint and the dreaded SMG transmission. For a 150k mile vehicle, the body and interior—especially the black interior leather!—are in great shape. Although it lacks the navigation screen which is found… Continue reading Comparison: 2004 BMW M3 vs 2011 BMW M3
I sold my beloved and verbosely-named Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX MR and replaced it with a much more terse BMW M3. The M3 is a 2011 sedan (E90) and it is optioned with DCT so my wife will enjoy driving it too; she never was comfortable driving my manual shift cars. While Evo was always… Continue reading Long Term: 2011 BMW M3
(I took a spring break trip to Germany in 2013, with the goal of driving a BMW on the autobahn and circling the Nurburgring Nordschleife. Sadly, my day at The Ring was snowed out, but I did drive nearly 2000 km on beautiful derestricted autobahns. What follows are the automotive excerpts from my travel journal.)… Continue reading Review: 2013 BMW 320d xDrive
Today I took a 2010 Nissan GT-R tuned to ~550 hp on a 5 hour/250 mile journey to find the best road in Pennsylvania. As I usually do when looking for good roads, I started out by loading Google and searching “best road PA”. Pennsylvania State Route 125 was the top named result and within… Continue reading Review: 2010 Nissan GT-R
The CTS-V is a stunningly capable car. The CTS-V was developed by Cadillac to establish its V performance brand as world-class alternative to M and AMG. The CTS-V’s headline figure is 556hp, the amount of horsepower it develops from its hand-me-down Corvette ZR-1 supercharged V8 engine. And it’s true that the V8 (code named the… Continue reading Review: 2011 Cadillac CTS-V Wagon
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