Cars We Drive!

[TheFoo]

BMW is going to get pinned especially because what it used to be, regarding to the Hyundai, excerpt

"
Because the Veloster N is so cheap, anyone with a nine-to-five can sign a note and ride off with one of the sharpest cars on the market. But it was more than price. Pressing the “N” button on the steering wheel changed the car dramatically. We tend to turn up our noses at drive modes on fun cars: Why does a Lamborghini need a Sport setting? Didn’t you buy the expensive loud one? The button makes perfect sense here, switching the car from quiet and comfortable daily driver to snotty hot hatch, the exhaust popping and snapping with more authority than anything the Corvette could muster. It is so fantastically neutral, pivoting at your hips, the throttle and brake yaw rheostats.

No front-drive car should work this well, but the Veloster is eager, urging you to run up and stick a pin in some expensive supercar’s ego. To watch it deflate as you fill their mirrors.


“It doesn’t care how you treat it,” Kinard said. “You can drive it on its tippy toes, like someone who knows what they’re doing. Or you can drive it like me, a ham-fisted Colin McRae wannabe. The thing rewards you.”

“That’s what the Civic Type R should have made people say,” Smith agreed.


DW BURNETT
There are flaws. The engine has all the character of an ink-jet printer, and the gas and brake pedal occupy different zip codes. But after five minutes, it doesn’t matter. As we chased the new Corvette away from our lunch stop on the final day of testing, the Hyundai had that mid-engine thing’s number, dancing and playing but forever confident. Kinard called it a bucket of puppies, but that’s not quite right. I’ve never met a puppy that can run down a McLaren on a back road.

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For all their bluster and power, their lap times and displacement, most of the carmakers at this test made a deal with the devil—they traded what once made them great in the search for outright speed. Never has the disparity been greater between the capabilities of a modern fast car and what is legally possible. The new definition of performance isn’t what a car can do, but what it will do on a good road.

The Veloster N is what a great front-wheel-drive car should feel like. A delight that welds a smile to your face every time you drive it. It cheers you on, treating you like the hero. And it came from a company that had no reason to build it. Chevrolet has to make a Corvette; Porsche, a 911. Short of a giant meteorite or nuclear winter, those names will always exist. Cars like the Veloster N are more special, crafted not of obligation, but for the sheer joy of driving. That’s why the Hyundai Veloster N is Road & Track’s 2020 Performance Car of the Year.

We got your letter, Hyundai. We heart you, too.

—Zach Bowman

"

What’s new? Hot hatches like the Veloster have been awesome funner-on-backroads, bangs-for-the-buck since the 80’s. Look at GTIs and Civics going back the last three decades. The real surprise is that the hot hatch in question is a Hyundai. Kudos.

However, coming from someone who grew up driving sporty little Japanese hatchbacks and coupes (all front wheel-drive), and loves those cars—it isn’t simply a matter of better or worse compared to a Corvette, 911, or MacLaren. As the article touches on, the Veloster engine is boring. Easily fifty-percent of the fun of a more pure/exotic sports car is in the tactility, noise, sense of occasion, etc. As much fun as my Prelude or RSX ever were on twisty roads, it was never exciting getting into them and starting them up the way it is with my GT3.

Where the market is going at the higher end is a bifurcation between straight-up performance versus purity/engagement. That’s why Porsche’s GT cars have become such hot items amongst enthusiasts who aren’t necessarily track rats, why Ferrari is experimenting with making cars like the Monza, why Ford’s GT350/500 garner so much adulation, etc. See BMW for an example of a company that doesn’t get it.

When electric cars can do 0-60 in no seconds, without any drama or sound, what it means to be a great sports car has shifted focus. Enthusiasts want to feel and hear more. There’s less of that to mine when the car is fundamentally an economy platform with a turbocharged economy engine.

 

[TheFoo]

Foo:


Also foo:


So he's buying a modification purely for aesthetic reasons which is the definition of a rice modification but it isn't rice because it isn't shiity to him.

No you ******* moron. Regardless of why I do the modification, it is a functional one.

 

[Omega Male]

Just waking up. And here I thought the wing nuts were mostly confined to the CE section?

 

[Thrift Vader]

After reading that R&T Article?

This is looking even better.

And if you don't know why? You need to find out.

@TheFoo Did you just besmirch Cup Holders???!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HOW DARE YOU SIR!!!

There are a small group of people, who want a Car with "real world speed". A Car that Isn't a mile race record holder. we want a car geared properly, to get me across this lane before a senior in a prius slams my car. instant wheel squeak that does no more than squeak. just grabs me. and puts me where i want to be. at the speed i want to be. in the blink of an eye.

A Car that does what it does. but can light up a 4-wheel ice drift. with one hand steering precision. has low, but instant HP. We want 4 doors. for Daily. seats that hold. And Cup Holders! That are in front of the vents. so keeping warm keeps your Coffee warm.

We don't want a Supercar, We want a Batmobile.
We want a Subaru.
And not that nerf'd down **** you get. we want to be riding atop the T-Rex in Jurassic Park. in a Lay-Z-Boy. at G's that tweak your back problems. Wicked fast. In a pure athlete.

Naw. . . you got enough money. see what the fuss is about. beware, it's like a cheap drug.

 

[otc]

Has Foo ever driven on a track?

 

[TheFoo]

Has Foo ever driven on a track?

Nope. Unless go-karts count.

 

[Texasmade]

Nope. Unless go-karts count.

Go-karting is pretty fun. You can drive on the limits of the kart without really worrying about causing lots of damage or hurting yourself.

 

[clee1982]

What’s new? Hot hatches like the Veloster have been awesome funner-on-backroads, bangs-for-the-buck since the 80’s. Look at GTIs and Civics going back the last three decades. The real surprise is that the hot hatch in question is a Hyundai. Kudos.

However, coming from someone who grew up driving sporty little Japanese hatchbacks and coupes (all front wheel-drive), and loves those cars—it isn’t simply a matter of better or worse compared to a Corvette, 911, or MacLaren. As the article touches on, the Veloster engine is boring. Easily fifty-percent of the fun of a more pure/exotic sports car is in the tactility, noise, sense of occasion, etc. As much fun as my Prelude or RSX ever were on twisty roads, it was never exciting getting into them and starting them up the way it is with my GT3.

Where the market is going at the higher end is a bifurcation between straight-up performance versus purity/engagement. That’s why Porsche’s GT cars have become such hot items amongst enthusiasts who aren’t necessarily track rats, why Ferrari is experimenting with making cars like the Monza, why Ford’s GT350/500 garner so much adulation, etc. See BMW for an example of a company that doesn’t get it.

When electric cars can do 0-60 in no seconds, without any drama or sound, what it means to be a great sports car has shifted focus. Enthusiasts want to feel and hear more. There’s less of that to mine when the car is fundamentally an economy platform with a turbocharged economy engine.

BMW is very much an "engine" company these days if you ask me, all the engine/transmission combo they're coming out are best in the class, but sitting on a more comfort oriented platform, or precise but no feel platform (other than the engine, which most consumer associate with sportiness I suppose)

 

[patrickBOOTH]

When I was young I got thrown out of the go kart track for being too aggressive.

 

[TheFoo]

Go-karting is pretty fun. You can drive on the limits of the kart without really worrying about causing lots of damage or hurting yourself.

Yessir.

BMW is very much an "engine" company these days if you ask me, all the engine/transmission combo they're coming out are best in the class, but sitting on a more comfort oriented platform, or precise but no feel platform (other than the engine, which most consumer associate with sportiness I suppose)

Best in class engines? Debatable. Mercedes makes a superior turbo V8. BMW may still make the better 6-cylinder, but I’m not sure that’s saying much. The whole genre of turbo’ed sixes is pretty boring.

BMW transmissions? Don’t think they are particularly stand-out in any respect.

When I was young I got thrown out of the go kart track for being too aggressive.

Bring it.

 

[Thrift Vader]

Got $10 on @Booth.

 

[HRoi]

I’m willing to accept that R&T feels the VN is a game changer in the world of front-driving hot hatches. It’s very plausible, especially given the involvement of the ex-BMW M people.

But the inherent disadvantage of a front-drive platform against other formats is, in my opinion, insurmountable. Not just in absolute performance but in terms of driving enjoyment as well. Would a car with all the weight in the front and accelerating+braking+steering all dependent on the same two front contact patches be ever more balanced, communicative, or sharp as a FR platform with 50/50 weight distribution and distributes work across all four tires? Or a mid-engine platform that puts most of the weight right with the driver and allows the whole car to just rotate around that center?

Again, maybe Hyundai have found a way to rewrite the laws of physics...and charge us $30k for the privilege of owning a physics-defying machine. But i doubt it very much. I think this win for Hyundai should put Ford, VW and Honda on notice...but it’s crazy to say you’d have more fun in this than a 600LT or a Lotus. Or a GT4, which i understand just barely missed getting in on the fun.

 

[Huntsman]

Functional modification may be functional, but it's just masturbation. The same arguments are had ad nauseum in the audiophile threak and on camera forums and gun forums. You're not going to convince someone who doesn't get off on what gets you off that what gets you off is the best at getting some group off. Nor, in many cases, does it do any good to put someone down for what gets them off if it doesn't get you off.

 

[clee1982]

Yessir.



Best in class engines? Debatable. Mercedes makes a superior turbo V8. BMW may still make the better 6-cylinder, but I’m not sure that’s saying much. The whole genre of turbo’ed sixes is pretty boring.

BMW transmissions? Don’t think they are particularly stand-out in any respect.



Bring it.

everybody use ZF8 (other than MB), but at least when I test drove I would say whatever BMW tuning on that transmission is definitely spot on and better vs. Volvo/MB (didn't test Audi/Jaguar/Alfa Romeo), though V8 wise MB definitely sounds better...

 

[Jmm722]

everybody use ZF8 (other than MB), but at least when I test drove I would say whatever BMW tuning on that transmission is definitely spot on and better vs. Volvo/MB (didn't test Audi/Jaguar/Alfa Romeo), though V8 wise MB definitely sounds better...

ZF8 is definitely the standard. Every company tunes it slightly differently though. I haven't driven any recent ZF8 other than a Hellcat, but it seemed good. I know BMW and Audi are supposed to be better tunes than MB and Jag.

I'm not sure if all Z8s do this, but I test drove a F-type and if you downshifted and it couldnt go into that heae it would remember the downshift command and downshift in the next turn if possible. Seemed like a cool feature for twisty roads and tracking.

I have a DCT, which I enjoy. The differences between DCTs feels far less imperceptible between brands from the Audi, Porsche and BMWs I've driven. It may be noticable on a track, which I don't do.

MB makes the best sounding V8 and Jagaur has the best sounding V6 with the F-type. Otherwise I'd say Alfa's ferrari V6 sounds the best, but doesn't appear to be reliable from reading Giulia forums.