Car Club Blog

They are flashy. They are fast. And they are very, very expensive. They are the exotic sports cars, the ultimate icons of speed, style and money. Exotic sports cars are built using cutting-edge technology and designed from a purely aesthetic point of view. Hence, they often ignore considerations of fuel economy and practicality in regards to storage, seating and their design and operations. As a result, they are either made-to-order, or manufactured in limited editions, sparing no costs. Only a select few can afford these exotic cars.

These T-Rexes of the motoring world can boast of engines that run on massive outputs of power, anywhere from 500 to 660 horsepower. Ferrari’s Enzo, its latest limited-edition offering, tempts the sports-car lover with its promise of Formula 1 experience. With acceleration from 0 to 60 in as little as 4-5 seconds, these exotic cars are in a league of their own in terms of pure power and performance. Plush interiors and exclusive accessories make these cars sought after by car collectors all over the world.

While exotic cars are at the very pinnacle of the auto aristocracy, they should only be bought after careful consideration. These supercars not only burn a hole in your pocket when you buy them, they are equally expensive to maintain, requiring specially trained mechanics for repairs, custom-ordered spare parts and gallons of fuel for optimum performance. They are delicate, and can be troublesome when the smallest part malfunctions. These beauties must be handled with extra care, as their tremendous power can go wrong in the hands of an inexperienced driver.

Nevertheless, they are the stuff that car legends are made of. The exotic car brands that have become legends over time have included Italian manufacturers like Ferrari, Lamborghini, Bugatti and Maserati; German companies like Porsche and Mercedes-Benz; the English carmaker Bentley, and American stars like Ford, Aston Martin and Dodge.

The open-top version of Audi’s R8 range-topping coupe has been caught virtually undisguised in Germany near, where else, the Nurburgring. Were it not for the flat-black paint, the Audi R8 Spyder (an official name has yet to be announced) could easily be mistaken for a production car.

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The Audi R8 convertible’s canvas roof looks to have forced the removal of the R8’s signature off-color side body panels and a redesign of the engine cover was also apparently necessary. The fuel filler cap has also been moved onto the rear quarter panel from its original position on the long B-pillar. For safety, rollover protection bars have been added, though these are not visible unless the top is down. Audi may also add air intakes located behind the seats and the chassis is said to have been strengthened to improve rigidity. With the roof up, the convertible has a very similar shape to the coupe, especially when viewed from the side.

The R8’s 420 horsepower 317 pound-feet 4.2-liter V-8 should be unchanged for the convertible. The upcoming V-10 variant of the R8, which is expected to make its debut in October at the Paris Motor Show, will debut as a coupe and may remain so, but it is possible it may also come in ragtop form, as the vehicles are more or less the same other than the obvious engine difference.

Our spy photographers have caught a glimpse of what looks to be the next Acura NSX testing near Germany’s Nürburgring.

The spied car bears a striking resemblance to the Acura Advanced Sports Car concept that we’ve seen at several auto shows. But Honda claimed the ASCC was just a design study, and rumor was that its icy reception necessitated a return to the drawing table. This spied car looks ready for production, though, having missed its original 2008 target.

Honda has already confirmed that the new NSX will be a front-engine supercar. The first-generation NSX, sold in the U.S. until 2005, had a mid-mounted 3.2-liter V-6.

Given their visual similarity, we expect the new NSX will use the same powertrain as the ASCC, which would mean a 5.0-liter V-10 engine paired with the automaker’s Super Handling All-Wheel Drive system. That could put the NSX on par with the likes of the Nissan GT-R.

Although it shares the same basic shape as the concept car, the NSX sports a higher roofline to allow more space in the cockpit, as well as smoother lines over the rear. The tiny headlamp slits from the concept have given way to real, normal-size headlights and there’s an extra center grille to help feed air to the engine.

At the rear, a pronounced trunklid spoiler and rear splitter look set to keep the NSX planted. LED taillights that spanned the entire rear of the concept car have been replaced by more conservative, production-ready LED housings. The concept’s dual stacked exhaust tips remain.

All this adds up to a car that doesn’t appear to be far from production while looking far more aggressive and track-ready than the concept car. We can’t wait to get our hands—and test gear—on one.

Let’s just get this out of the way. Yes, the beaky nose on the new Acura TL looks odd. Maybe it’s just the shock of a new look; maybe it really is weird-looking. We’ll need more time to gaze critically upon it before we decide. We can, however, testify that it looks better in the flesh than in photographs and that the rest of the TL’s angular, modern shape is assuredly handsome, especially in the pointed shape of the trunk. And while it might look odd, the car’s grille carries a familial resemblance to the rest of the Acura lineup. Puns aside, the TL stands out as the face of the brand. It spearheaded Acura’s sales resurgence in the late ’90s and remains Acura’s bestselling car.

The success of previous TLs centered on two aspects: a powerful V-6 engine and lots of standard equipment. The new TL predictably sticks to that playbook but adds another page with the addition of optional all-wheel drive. The standard TL’s V-6 gets a displacement enhancement from 3.2 liters to 3.5; power is up 22 horsepower to 280, and torque grows by 21 pound-feet to 254. Both numbers are, however, slightly lower than the output of the 3.5-liter in the old TL Type-S. The all-wheel-drive TL, dubbed SH-AWD and equipped with the same rear-wheel torque-splitting system found in the RDX and MDX, comes with a 3.7-liter engine rated at 305 horsepower and 275 pound-feet of torque. It’s basically the same powertrain as in the updated RL [C/D, September 2008], with variable intake- and exhaust-valve timing and lift all on a single cam. Both TL engines are mated to a five-speed automatic, which seems outdated in a segment where six and seven speeds are common. Visually, the SH-AWD model is differentiated by the functional front brake ducts next to the fog lamps, four exhaust tips at the rear, and 18- or 19-inch wheels and tires.

As before, the TL is based on the Accord, although this one doesn’t share any major dimensions with the Honda. Exterior dimensions are all bigger than the outgoing model’s, with length growing a full six inches, to 195.3. The bigger size doesn’t translate directly to the interior, though. The front seat is slightly smaller, while the rear seat is a little bigger (legroom is up 1.3 inches). Trunk space is bigger by just less than one cubic foot.

As for the rest of the Acura playbook, the TL still boasts an impressive amount of equipment. The Technology package, an option box that 70 percent of TL buyers are expected to tick, adds to a long list of standards: keyless entry and ignition, a 10-speaker ELS surround stereo with 12.7-gigabyte hard drive, and a navigation system. That nav boasts real-time traffic information, specific lane routing for multilane highways, and an industry-first Doppler radar weather-map feature.

The insides share a familiar look with other Acuras, but the multifunction controller knob and the bevy of buttons that surround it seem less confusing and cluttered than in the RDX. Material qualities are first-rate, and this car feels far more upscale than the previous one did.

Driving the TL back-to-back with its predecessor makes it clear that major improvements have been made, with one exception. Body motions are better controlled, road and wind noise have been all but eliminated, the brakes feel solid, and the TL corners with a more level attitude than its compliant ride would suggest. Torque steer, long a TL drawback, is far better managed. On the other hand, steering feel has lost the plot. The new TL uses electronic power assist, as opposed to the old hydraulic unit. It’s more precise on-center, but the old car’s steering was better weighted and offered much more feel.

Despite about 250 pounds of added weight, 32-percent-stiffer springs, and increased damping force, the SH-AWD rides better than the standard TL. The engine note is slightly throatier, and the handling is more responsive, too, thanks in part to optional 19-inch tires shod with Michelin Pilot Sport PS2 tires.

Saleswise, this is Acura’s most important car, and even with prices holding steady (starting at about $35,000 and moving up to $42,000 for a loaded SH-AWD), it’s possible that potential buyers could be turned off by its funny face. Which is a shame, because everywhere else (except for the steering), the TL is the most focused and best executed car in Acura’s lineup.

The K-1 Attack is one Slovakian’s vision of a hunkered down, slash-cut, sexed-up, air-scooped atomic-bombed crustacean, and you either buy it or you don’t. We do. The K-1 Attack has got it all going on, but at a stiff price.

The Slovak in question, Dick Kvet?anský, started K-1 Styling & Tuning (now called K-1 Engineering) in the suburbs of Bratislava around 1990 to produce fiberglass faux-exotic body kits for the GM F-body Chevy Camaro/Pontiac Firebird. The kits included the Turborossa (Ferrari quickly sued), the K-25 Anniversary (a Countach knockoff), and the Evoluzione, which perhaps avoided legal trouble because it blended Ferrari themes with those of other cars, including the C4 Corvette and Huggy Bear’s pimpmobile.

After all that, the Attack was K-1’s next project, and a great leap forward it was. Styled by Kvet?anský’s pal Juraj Mitro, the Attack is a two-seat roadster—there’s no top—built on its own steel-tube space frame and clad in a stiletto-shaped fiberglass body with Lamborghini-style scissors doors (motorization is an option) and a carbon-fiber belly pan. Except for a few Grand Canyon-sized panel gaps, the whole car has the highly teased styling and factory-finished polish of an auto-show concept car.

Much of the credit for that goes to Jay King at Ultimate Kit Builders in Danbury, Connecticut, who took over the build of this car from a distraught customer and had war stories to tell of hieroglyphic instructions, ill-fitting parts, and missing vitals such as the emergency brake, which King fabricated from scratch (builders can exchange info at the K-1 forum www.attackforums.com). Still, King became so enamored with the Attack that he signed up to be the U.S. distributor and is currently in negotiations with K-1 to buy the tooling and make the kits for the U.S. market.

The engine and the front suspension of a front-drive car are grafted, struts and all, onto the rear quarter of the K-1 behind the cockpit. In Europe, the preference is for 2.5-liter V-6 Ford Mondeo units; however, our test car had a 220-hp, 2.2-liter Honda H22A four-cylinder from a circa-1995 Japanese domestic-market Prelude hooked to a five-speed manual from a 1998 Accord. The front suspension is K-1’s own design, using pyramid-shaped control arms levered on inboard Audi shock absorbers. The shocks poke through holes in the nose cone, allowing the driver to watch the front suspension twitch and spasm as the 18-inch Moda wheels and Goodyear Eagle F1 tires (225/40 front, 275/35 rear) roll over bumps.

Neon-blue Dakota Digital gauges and hard-shell seats sporting a funky dog’s-paw-pad arrangement augment the car’s futuristic weirdness. But the Attack is unexpectedly comfortable and capable on the road. The dynamics are well sorted, with the mid-engine layout, quick steering, and competent suspension tune keeping it stable and stuck in corners up to 0.95 g on the skidpad. The body roll is restrained, and the chassis swallows road blight without shedding pieces, not always a given in kit cars. Except for some slop in the pedals, the Attack’s overall sophistication is surprising.

The basic Attack kit is $25,000, which buys the frame, the unpainted body shell, a big baggie of unmarked fasteners, and a couple years’ worth of headaches. If King’s deal happens, the Attack will sell for $45,000 as an assembled and unpainted rolling chassis with the major problems sorted. King, whose main business is tuning Japanese cars, figures a fully finished Attack will attack its owner’s wallet for at least $75,000, or up to $100,000 for a supercharged version making 300 horsepower.

The 2369-pound Attack sheared one of its relatively new aftermarket half-shafts after just a few charges up the drag strip. Bad metallurgy was the possible culprit. The 60-mph run in 7.0 seconds and the quarter in 15.3 seconds at 89 mph might have been fleeter were there more time to discover the best launch technique. In almost every other aspect, the Attack is hard to assail except on price, which at least purchases absolute novelty, something that is rarely cheap.

We don’t think that we go too far in stating that the Audi R8 is a near-perfect supercar. It looks great, with the inimitable proportions of a mid-engine sports car topped off with Audi’s trademark styling language and attention to detail. Fit and finish are top-notch—and it’s comfortable enough to gobble hundreds of miles without ever wearing out the driver. Moreover, given the mid-mounted engine placement, it behaves in a forgiving and benign way. In fact, it feels so planted to the road that it could easily handle more than the 420 horsepower it serves up.

More Power? Yes, Please

This leads directly to the sole complaint we have about the R8—its relative lack of power in the exalted world of supercars. Even so, its acceleration is good, right up there with the Porsche 911 Carrera S, and it will cut through the lofty 300-km/h (186 mph) barrier, if barely. But other mid-engine cars like the R8’s Lamborghini Gallardo sibling or the Ferrari F430, are significantly faster. Even high-powered sedans and station wagons, such as the Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG wagon, can out-accelerate the R8.

If there’s a power issue with an Audi, German enthusiasts have long known where to find the cure: at Roland Mayer’s MTM tuning house in Wettstetten, Bavaria, just a few kilometers down the road from Audi’s headquarters in Ingolstadt. Mayer is a former Audi engineer who took part in the development of the legendary first-generation Quattro. He founded MTM (Motoren Technik Mayer) in 1990 and has gained a reputation for offering a wide range of tuning options, from reprogramming turbo-diesels to extreme vehicles like the Bimoto, a first-generation Audi TT with two engines rated at over 500 horsepower each. That car has broken 244 mph at the Papenburg test track in northern Germany, and Mayer aims to go even beyond that.

Give It a Little More Air

Mayer’s cure for the R8: supercharge it. The MTM R8 Supercharged uses an intercooled, twin-screw Lysholm unit bolted onto Audi’s high-revving 4.2-liter FSI V-8. Operating with a maximum boost of 8 psi, it pushes horsepower from 420 horsepower at 7800 rpm to a claimed 560 at 7750. Maximum torque is improved from 317 lb-ft at 4500 rpm to 413 lb-ft at 5500 rpm.

The chassis and Quattro four-wheel-drive system, which favors sending power to the rear wheels, remain unchanged. But MTM offers 20-inch wheels, a high-performance braking system, and some aerodynamic enhancements, such as a front lip and a diffuser. It all looks quite sophisticated and could have been done by Audi itself. The interior is transformed with two carbon seats, padded with separate cushions. They look futuristic and are far more comfortable than we expected.

We drove the car on its home turf in Germany, and it will be available to U.S. customers via Hoppen Motorsport of Sarasota, Florida—although it must be said that Roland Mayer doesn’t expect a lot of U.S. takers.

The Chevrolet Corvette has more power than most people would ever want. For those who aren’t satisfied with the 430 horsepower found under the base Corvette’s long, shapely hood, though, the truly decadent 505-hp Corvette Z06 steps it up a big notch to become one of the most capable and quick sports cars on the planet. Still want more? In 2009, the Corvette ZR1 returns as the new so-called King of the Hill, with 638 horsepower and a $100,000 price tag.

Then there are those for whom even that won’t do. And for them, Pratt & Miller builds the C6RS.

“The C6RS is what a Corvette can become when not restricted by the requirements of assembly-line-based manufacturing,” says spokesman Brandon Widmer of Pratt & Miller Engineering and Fabrication, the outfit GM hired to build its enigmatically successful C5.S and C6.R race cars. That’s right, the same cars that have been pummeling the field in American Le Mans Series races for years, and the same cars that have clinched five class wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. If anyone knows how to make a Corvette more exciting, it’s these guys.

The C6RS was born when Chevrolet approached Pratt & Miller to develop some Corvette accessories in February 2006. Soon, however, it became clear that a full upgrade package would require a complete reengineering. “With the C6RS, we analyzed every major component of the production Corvette, looking for opportunities to optimize design for performance, durability, quality, and aesthetics,” says Widmer.

The result is the stunning coupe seen here. After our first drive of the thrilling coupe at Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch, we’d say that Pratt & Miller’s holistic efforts have paid off. The C6RS is a very refined, comprehensively modified, and extremely fast Corvette-based super-sports car. It clearly has the soul of a race car but is actually a fully finished, fully refined road car that would be impossible to replicate piece by piece. And at a price of about $260,000, it’s not one you’ll see every day.

C6.R-Inspired Styling

The C6RS is a stunning piece of sculpture. Every body panel except the roof, targa bar, decklid/backlight, and door skins have been replaced by unique, aerodynamically optimized carbon-fiber panels. “Many design cues come from the C6.R race car,” Widmer tells us, referencing the ‘“waterfall style” hood, the center-lock wheels, and the car’s most distinctive element, some four feet of front-fender louvers.

More carbon fiber can be found underlining every lower edge, jutting out from the chin spoiler, underneath the flared door sills, and across the whole rear end in the form of a wide air diffuser. The C6RS rides on a suspension lowered by 1.5 inches, so Pratt & Miller saw fit to incorporate a lift system to raise the car for steep driveway approaches, as well as drop the car an inch for a little bad-boy slam when parked at the local show-and-shine.

Certain aesthetics, such as the lights, are unchanged—a missed opportunity to impart some additional exotica, perhaps? But still others are altered, if only in subtle ways: The door pulls, for example, are filled in by a fraction of an inch; the fender ducts and the hood nostril are enlarged; the tacked-on Corvette flag icons front and rear are shaved to about half their thickness. A full-width rear lip spoiler spans the tail, looking better than the tacky black mini-lip on the Z06.

Look closely, and you’ll see a bit of C5 in the rear end. The reason is that the haunches stretch out farther laterally before dropping over the wheels, creating more of a slab-sided look, whereas the Z06 goes more for the flared-lip look. From behind, this makes for one massively wide derrière. A cool detail: The reverse lights are integrated into a thin LED strip just above the tailpipes.

Even without add-ons, base rates at most car rental companies are going up according to one expert’s data. “Rates are up substantially year over year,” car rental consultant Neil Abrams told The Detroit News.

Abrams Consulting Group, Inc. has created a travel rate index for rental cars based upon data collected weekly from eight rental car companies. Abrams concludes, “There is some variation depending on whether you’re renting on- or off-airport, and whether you’re looking for daily or weekly rentals, but in general prices are going up.”

Abrams notes that car rental fleets have shrunk from more than 2 million to 1.7 million cars over the last three years and that is part of the explanation for increased rental car prices.

“Car rental—exotic or otherwise—is an extremely competitive business with clients that are well informed about prices and alternatives,” says Ron Sturgeon, owner of a Dallas exotic car rental company.

“Smart operators should be looking for ways to set themselves apart from the competition by assuring a noticeably better rental experience. Southwest Airlines has thrived in an arena where profits are tough to achieve by devoting themselves to delivering a better travel experience. That is the path to staying profitable and earning customer loyalty and repeat business,” says Sturgeon.

Kate Miller-Wilson is a freelance writer living in the Twin Cities. Visit her website or email her for information about her freelance writing services.

Should you get on Jeopardy! here’s the likely question to the answer, “A very popular video game about racing”: What is Gran Turismo? Well, that’s one answer.

Gran turismo (or grand touring) is a term cooked up by car-crazy Italians ages ago to describe an automobile that could do it all. A GT combined the handling and high performance of a sports car with the ability to transport two grown-ups and their luggage in comfort across great distances. In the process, GTs also became synonymous with power and beauty, all the way back to the Alfa Romeo 8C-2900B coupes of the 1930s. Generally, GTs are front-engine because that way they have a usable trunk and good visibility. GTs are special, too, often the most glamorous cars their makers produce and among the most expensive.

Which brings us to the two cars you see here, the Ferrari 599GTB Fiorano and the ­Aston Martin DBS, both of which embody the modern meaning of GT.

The Aston Martin is the newer of these two vehicles. It was introduced at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Élégance in August 2007 but didn’t go on sale in the U.S. until earlier this summer. The name pays homage to the crisply styled coupe from 1967, and it is, essentially, a more muscular, faster, and more expensive version of the DB9 that has been on sale since 2005.

Underpinning the DBS’s sleek lines is Aston’s so-called VH aluminum architecture that also provides the bare bones for the DB9 and the V-8 Vantage. A new cross-dashboard supporting beam, a front strut crossbrace, and solid mounting of the rear subframe are among the modifications to the structure. To reduce weight, the trunk enclosure and lid, the door-opening surrounds, the hood, and the front fenders are made from carbon fiber.

Compared with the DB9, the DBS’s track is 0.7 inch wider at the front and 0.8 inch at the rear, and the car sits 0.4 inch higher. Thanks to the use of the carbon-fiber panels and carbon-ceramic brakes, the DBS, at 3820 pounds, is 220 pounds lighter than the last DB9 we tested.

It’s somewhat more powerful, with 510 horsepower (versus 470 in the DB9). Aston has found 40 additional ponies from its 5.9-liter V-12 by fitting revised cylinder heads and a new intake manifold. Torque of 420 pound-feet is down by 23, peaking slightly higher, at 5750 rpm, although no fewer than 369 lb-ft are on hand from 2000 rpm. The power is transmitted via a rear-mounted six-speed Graziano manual transaxle, one of the options on the DB9.

The DBS has a control-arm suspension all around, but an adaptive damping system is unique to this car. It uses two separate valves that allow the shocks to have five different damping levels, determined by an electronic control unit reacting to throttle and brake-pedal position, steering-wheel angle, and vehicle speed. A special track mode locks the shocks in their firmest setting. The stability control also has been upgraded, with a competitive driving mode that allows some sideways action before the electronics intervene. The system also can be switched off completely. The carbon-ceramic brakes are a first for Aston Martin and are 15.7 inches in diameter up front, 14.2 inches out back (the same as the Ferrari’s).

The changes are costly, with the base price rising from $168,950 for a DB9 to a whopping $266,350 for a DBS. With Infa Red paint (specific to our test car) and an alarm upgrade, our tester stickered at $270,430.

The Ferrari 599GTB went on sale in the U.S. last spring as a replacement for the 550/575 series that had been in production since 1996. Ferrari has since sold about 500 599s. The base price is $318,045, although we suspect that most of them sticker for a lot more on the evidence of this optioned-out $385,419 tester. Items such as the $26,000 paint job, the $1776 Ferrari fender badges, and $12,547 of interior carbon-fiber trim must make the beancounters happy.

Like the DBS, the 599 has aluminum underpinnings and body panels and also features a hi-po, large-capacity V-12. In this case, the detuned Enzo unit displaces 6.0 liters, makes a solid 612 horsepower, and drives through Ferrari’s F1 SuperFast ­automated manual transmission.

Ferrari also resorts to electronics to balance the tricky equation between sports-car handling and the kind of ride comfort that will allow owners to use their cars as grand tourers. In this case, the 599 uses electromagnetic shocks, their calibration partly controlled by the manettino, a five-position rotary switch on the steering wheel that also governs shift speed and traction- and stability-control settings.

Over roads as diverse as L.A.’s clogged freeways to the nearly empty two-lanes that spear through the Anza-Borrego Desert, we wrung out both of these gorgeous machines. Here’s what we discovered.