Agreed. Putting in a bigger engine won't do anything to help the handling problems caused by all that weight. Sure, it's a huge muscle car, but honestly, wouldn't something that can take corners be even more fun - with 40% of the fuel consumption.

The Citroen C6 has the ever-funky hydropneumatic suspension, which means that it will make your E-class or 7-series look crude in comparison.

Sadly, Aston Martin is not what it once was. Under Ford, Astons have been increasingly oriented towards the sort of person who want amazing looks and noise without the white-knuckle driving experience. They're sort of like the Hummer H2 of supercars.

I have been worried about the future of Aston under their new Dubai and UAE conglomorate owners. With no real competitors in the non-performance car market, they could stand to make vast profits from producing exquistely styled cars designed not for performance, but luxury.

And what was the first thing they did after buying the company?

They started shoving bigger engines in their preexisting models.

I think that Aston is going to be just fine.

Who on earth designs these monstrosities, and how much would it cost to call a hit on them?

More cylinders = more horsepower = more hell.

Naah. Ultramatic, Electric Hand...this is awesome stuff!

A late 80s Ferrari, like the F40, is a demon to drive. With minimal electronic assists and massive turbos, the driver was involved with every function of the car. Every single nerve in your body is attuned to your vehicle's every movment, your inner ear constantly on guard for the faint beginnings of understeer which could throw you into a tree at a millisecond's notice. It's like a Jackie Stewart era Formula One car in that the limiting factor is not the engine or the gearbox but the driver.

Today's Ferraris, much like formula one cars, are heavily automated. The Enzo, with its drive-by-wire controls and massively sophisticated traction control system, barely requires a driver at all. With traction and grip being constantly monitored by F1-grade accelerometers connected to a computer faster than the one used to host Jalopnik, even an idiot can make an Enzo go fast, making it far less rewarding for the skilled driver.

To understand why I don't think the Enzo is very good, one must look at the fundamentals of supercar design, and why no amount of brilliant engineering can compensate for a flawed basic concept.

There are three types of modern supercars. First, there are the luxury cruisers like the Veyron, 911, and SLR, offering blistering performance with minimal sacrifices in comfort. Secondly, there are the insane supercars: things like the Koenigsegg CCXR and Lamborghini Murcielago which bellow "I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!" into your face unrelentingly as you drive, giving a massive rush of adrenaline. Finally, there are the elegant supercars - light, racing-inspired vehicles with refined handling characteristics like the F430, Noble M400, and Ascari A10.

Instead of focusing one one of these three areas, Ferrari has tried to achieve all of them. To make the car luxurious and comfortable, such extras as cushy seats, a sound system, and air conditioning has been fitted. To deal with the extra weight, a gargantuan 650hp V12 has been fitted. To make it drivable, a truly massive amount of driver assists have been used.

The end result fails all around. The racing pretenses have resulted in far less luxury than a Veyron, while the combination of massive engine and automation mean that the car is neither insane nor particularly involving to drive.

But, most important of all, I think it's really, really ugly.

That good?

I think there's something about England that allows the British people to take an engine from an economy sedan, stuff some turbochargers on it, shove it in a hand-welded frame designed by a tiny design team, and end up with a brilliant car.

I suspect it's in the water.

In the 50s, 220hp was what you'd get from only the largest of engines. Ferraris of 1954 had less horsepower than that.

@Unevolved: Whoop!:

I recall from the review of a turbine-powered motorcycle that there is a substantial lag between when you put your foot down and when you start moving faster.

@Adamskiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiy:

The TVR Speed Twelve is like combining the entire Running of the Bulls into one single voltron-bull, which is then injected with a metric ton of amphetamines, testosterone, and cocaine before you ride it. It makes Koenigseggs look like Volvos. It is the polar opposite of the Veyron: While the ubervolkswagen is cool, calm, and relaxed at 246 miles per hour, so much as breathing on the gas pedal of the TVR is guaranteed to make you wet yourself.

Nah. I think there's room up there for a second engine!

There's also the issue of finding parts. With the Fierrari, you can cast your own fiberglass bits, and nobody will ever know the the difference - in fact, you'll probbably make the car look better.

There were, however, only 170 Zimmers. Of those, quite a lot have either rusted away, been impounded by border guards, or crashed in a giant cocaine-infused fireball after a lengthy chase down an LA freeway.

Amen!

That said, modern cars are heavy and fuel-hungry for a very good reason: Safety. On 5th gear (like Top Gear, except featuring useful information, a fat man, and a racing driver who talks), they crashed a Renault econobox into a Volvo 940 wagon with an 80mph difference in speed - the Renault came out much better than the Volvo! Modern cars are built like tanks, and unless you want to ban SUVs (which I firmly support), they have to be.

There is also a superior option to today's "light" hybrids: Series hybrids. By connecting a tiny engine tuned to run very efficiently at high speeds to a generator which in turn powers a variable-winding electric motor, one could easily see 70 miles per gallon out of a Prius.

It's not a new technology, either - every diesel locomotive on the rails today is a series hybrid, using a generator-motor system to efficiently take the power produced by low-torque turbine engines to pull a 200 ton train.

Bravo, soviet-bloc hoons! Bravo!

Oops. Meant to say "Cheap GAS."

As we all know, the price of bear has dropped steadily throughout the 70s, and lagged behind inflation for the following two decades.

If they were to make the car half again lighter and swap in an economical high-compression ethanol-burning turbo V6, then it really would mean the same thing it did forty years ago: Cheap, practical, and attractive performance for the masses.

300hp at the wheels of a light RWD car should be fun indeed.

Honestly, has no one else seen this coming?

Hey!

I still own a TRS-80.

The Mazda6 is known for being less reliable than the Mazda3 (a.k.a Euro-Focus). Around here, not many people have one, but Mazda3's are everywhere.

The Fusion is a Mazda6 with an even nastier interior, and none of the suspension tweaks that make the Mazda fun to drive.

I personally think that Ford is mind-bogglingly stupid for pushing the @#$@$# Mustang as their top-spec car. The Mustang was always a second-string muscle car, and should be left that way.

I honestly don't see the point of this at all.

1. Location. Solar panels only work in places with huge amounts of sun year-round. Where I live, it's cloudy three days out of four, so power production is limited. As a result, solar power works better in California and New Mexico.

2. Degredation. Over time, heat will cause a solar cell to produce less power - and, because a solar panel is invariably a big, black object left directly in the path of the sun, they get quite hot indeed. I'm not sure of how much of a problem this is, but I do know it's there.

3. Cost. Unless you're in a really, really sunny place, you will likely never get your money back at all.

On the subject of ethanol, I've been saying it's a bad idea for years. A gallon of oil results in a bit more than a gallon of corn ethanol, but corn ethanol has much less energy per gallon than oil.

Switchgrass might help the ethanol issue, but the biggest potential source is cellulose - things that we can't or won't eat, like corncobs and leaves. I know a fellow who's working on making this economically viable, and he says it's not so much an issue of whether it will work so much as who will do it first.

And remember...ethanol is the equivalent of roughly ~110 octane gas. Sometimes, being "green" is not so bad.

Marvellous!

It needs a flat-black undercoat paint job so you can pretend you're Batman.

COTD!

That is excellent!

There is nobody as overprotective nor generous as the husband of a pregnant woman. Regardless of how well they actually work, they'll sell millions.

Of course, in a few years we'll come to find that they actually cause neo-natal whiplash, but the inventor will have long ago retired to a Fiji estate anyway.

It may also be a toaster, depending on syntax.

I was going to say a Vespa 400, but that's just so much better.

Noble MC15: Uses a Ford Mondeo engine.
Koenigsegg: Uses a Ford "Modular" V8 - the same as is found in police cars.
Ariel Atom: Uses a Honda Type-R engine with a supercharger.

And, my #1 favorite:

The Ultima GTR. Faster around the Top Gear track than an Enzo by eight seconds. Capable of 0-100-0 in 9.4 seconds.

It uses a small-block Chevrolet engine!

While sharing a platform between two supercars (e.g. Enzo and MC12) is a bit thick, sharing a platform between oddball car companies who specialize in other areas makes a lot of sense.

Remember, the DeLorean had a slightly modified Esprit chassis, but it was a very different car. The Tesla is based on the Elise, but it's impossible to confuse the two.

I'm willing to bet that the Spyker will have greater ground clearance, cushy seats, fancy leather and chrome anywhere, and a much softer suspension setup.

The problem with Lotus cars is that they are simply too hardcore. They're sparsely equipped vehicles (electric windows extra!) vehicles that have traded all luxury for performance.
Spyker, on the other hand, makes insane cars that look excellent but don't really go that fast. They are, however, very good at the upholstery , knobs, and dials end of automotive design - an area where Lotus is a bit lacking.

@acidic:
All Lotuses use Toyota engines. The partnership between the two companies is a result of Lotus' work on the suspensions of the mk.1 MR2 and mk.1 and mk.2 Toyota Supra.

Lotus has also worked on the following other cars:

-Lotus Cortina, a popular club-racing car.
-Vauxhall/Opel Speedster, essentially a slightly cheaper, cushier version of the Elise availible with a turbo.
-The original Corvette ZR-1, including the design, testing, and tuning of the LT5 engine, the suspension, and more.

Why bother when you could get a Koenigsegg? The supercharged Ford police-car V8 in one of those produces an astonishing 850+ horsepower on eco-friendly ethanol!