Driving along the border of North and South Cackalacky in BMW's new Mars Rover X6 when suddenly Captain Siler and I happened upon this ghostly beaut. She'll never run and in a few years this green masterpiece will slide right down the cliff she's perched on. If I were richer, I'd buy a lot of land and make this Mack the focal point of my garden. Maybe get a couple of wooden Japanese bridges leading up to it. Not unreasonably, Wes became convinced that the owner was going to pop out of the dilapidated shack, shot gun in hand and kill us for trespassing. As the sign said, "Welcome, Now Git!" Still, I could have stood and stared all day.

Frankly, it would've been funnier (and cheaper) if Maserati would've just handed Atlanta resident Henry Owings the keys to a few cars and let the Corolla-driving member of the Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences humiliate himself on the track. But it was probably more educational to fly out Jonny Lieberman, wine him, dine him and Quattroporte him. While The Loverman wasn't so big on the Maser Coupe and fought a war with the Quattroporte's gearbox, he fell in love with the four-door anyway. And the Masers didn't even have to have Michel Gondry render him in Lego. Although they should've.

Maserati Health Check [The Truth About Cars]

Related:
Jalopnik Reviews: 2006 Maserati Quattroporte, Part 1 [The Truth About Cars]

[Introducing... Jonny Lieberman, Jalopnik's latest Man from Q.W.E.R.T.Y. — ed]

I just got back from Skip Barber's two-day High Performance Driving School, where four car-magazine all-stars were served in a pistonhead's dream buffet: Porsche's uppity Boxster and venerable 911, BMW's bantam bad-ass M3 and Dodge's sociopathic Viper. It was strictly a track-day outing, involving none of the practicalities of ownership (the Skip Barber course doesn't address grocery getting), so every second spent in these rides was on a skip-pad, cone-track or infield autocross circuit. How do the four car-mag stars stack up for sheer track-day pleasure? Let's see...

Porsche Boxster
Summary: Gutless Wonder
Pros: The handling of a go-cart with twice the grip. The Boxster can make an average driver (hi mom!) feel like Dan Gurney at Le Mans. Is it the computer? No, switching off the PSM nanny only serves to embiggen your smile as the damn thing stays planted even without techno-assist. Perfect steering, perfect brakes, perfect balance, plus the top drops. Sounds the part, too, as if Slayer's having band practice in the trunk. Despite its diminutive size, feels carved from iron ore; only the sun visors flex. Relatively cheap.
Cons: Needs 100 more horsepower. May your autocross track have no straightaways. Not rewarding enough as a track car - it's too slow, too pretty and too easy to flog. Take a corner wrong and the Boxster does it for you. You are never penalized for bad behavior. Inspires a false sense of confidence, as you are still a hack. Has an anus.

Porsche 911 (997)
Summary: Ass-First
Pros: Challenging, yet is ultimately rewarding. Good technique makes you feel heroic. Snap-oversteer is, uh, a snap. Butch engine with a glorious soundtrack provides useful, rapid acceleration. Build quality feels as solid as the Bismarck. Ran cool all day — 110 degree Las Vegas heat didn't phase it. Features the same life-saving computer technology as the Boxster (PSM) and adds PASM, a stability control program. The latest (997) model's gotten more than just a refresh; a huge improvement over the older 996 — feels crafted rather than assembled.
Cons: Ass-engine means the 911 understeers constantly - don't dare budge the wheel while accelerating. It also means ham-fisted steering results in badonka-donk oversteer. Unless your daily driver has an engine behind the rear wheels, the handling characteristics are weird. Only turn off PSM if you have a friend with a body shop. Must be beaten and muscled; shamed by the Boxster's ease of use and simple grace. We can see your hair plugs, dude.

BMW M3
Summary: Too German.
Pros: Rottweiler of a mill provides grabbed-by-the-balls acceleration. Faster than the 911 for much less money. 50/50 weight distribution means informed, predictable responses. Handling-wise, can take more abuse than you can serve up. Powerful brakes are good all day. Looks upset, even hostile; scares the ladies in the Boxster.
Cons: Snore. Follows orders to the letter, but bureaucratically so. Lacks charisma, passion, nuance and build quality when stacked up against competing Germans. Cheap, flimsy shift-lever betrays the precision of the wheel and pedals. Vegas' sun made it overheat. Feels violent and drunk when DSC (the nanny) is switched off. Clarkson gives Bimmer owners a 5 on his cock-o-meter (out of five).

Dodge Viper SRT-10
Summary: The Car That Hates You
Pros: 8.3 liter, 505 horsepower V10 with more torque than a river. See Cons.
Cons: Professional racecar drivers and terminal cancer patients only, please. No computer and no ABS means you shouldn't go near it. Yes, you. Cramped insides mean the pedals are in a bad position — too far to the left, which makes heal-and-toe downshifts a contortionist's affair. World's most expensive toaster oven. Everything you've ever read about the Viper being hot inside is true. (And it was magnified in Vegas.) The metal "oh shit!" handles are only half a foot above the exhaust pipes - literally too hot to handle. And the transmission tunnel is worse. The metal speaker-grills burn your calves. Engine smoke pouring through vents into the cockpit is "normal." Too expensive and too much car for 99.9% of the population; therefore I want one. What's not to love/fear about a snarling, spitting snake?

Conclusion
A virtual dead heat between the Porsches. Since this is a track-day-only comparison, my hat tips toward the 911. The Boxster is a hoot, but it is slightly childish; more of an amusement ride than a serious instrument. (Plus, it's slower than my car and I'm poor.) The new-gen 911 is simply a better driver's tool. Push it hard, push it smart and the 911 performs miracles. You feel as if you are really accomplishing something, not just grinning like an idiot (see Boxster). Sorry about the M3, Bavaria; better luck with the next one. Yes, another victory for the 911. But, who knows? After a few more laps (and a few more cigarettes) I might change my vote to the Viper. [by Jonny Lieberman]

Related:
Darwin Defiance: Three Supercars That'll Protect the Stupid [internal]

Farago inexplicably lets go of a Porsche test and hands it over to Jonny Lieberman. The front end does not come unglued. The ass end does. Repeatedly and controllably. We will also not call The Loverman a hack driver, despite his self-assertion in the review. The boy is good. We usually hate riding shotgun, but with the exception of flying up an alley in his pseudo-rally car (and that was mainly due to what other folks might do), we felt perfectly content to check out the nubiles while he piloted. So what sayeth said Loverman?

Well, he rocks a mad WWII reference, which is only fitting, considering he once played bass in a band called Tarawa. Which is what they mostly sounded like.

"Take the rpms above 4,000 and the Battle of Midway is being waged behind your head. Screw that; the bombing of Dresden. I have never heard such monumental, merciless violence."

Okay, Jonny. We get it. But when was the last time you stood next to a Fueler as it lurches off the line? We know you love the car and all; hyperbole is fun, etc. But a Porsche is still not the Swamp Rat, no matter how many sexual references you make.

Porsche Boxster [The Truth About Cars]

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Last Night Everything Broke/Dietrich Ate My Homework: Jalopnik/TTAC's AC Schnitzer Adventure [Internal]

So what happens when two punk rockin' autojournalists attempt to make an attempt to retrace the route of Stefan and "Dietrich" in an AC Schnitzer-tuned 6-Series droptop while cranking Jawbreaker's Bivouac album? The front fascia decides to take a dirt-nap as a result of aerodynamic pressure at 70mph (approximately 90 mph slower than Eriksson's wee mishap) and they ride back to the Claus Ettenberger shop in a big honkin' International flatbed driven by a gregarious man in a Dodgers cap.

Less ignominious and rife with intrigue than the fateful ride Mr. Eriksson took, for sure, but Davey G. and Jonny Lieberman nevertheless shamefacedly trudged back to Pedro in Lieberman's WRX, having been failed by a faulty front end just short of their goal. We didn't even have time for any hoonage. Check Lieberman's lengthier account over at The Truth About Cars.

AC Schnitzer ACS6 [The Truth About Cars]

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More AC Schnitzer [Internal]

Oh God. We don't even know where to go with this one. It all started with Erich Schulte's too-gut-busting review of the Knight Rider Season 1 DVD, and graduallly degenerated into a free-for-all on Ruthless Reviews' forum. Seriously, we're just gonna fast-forward you to page six of the stuff, where everything gets so retardedly, evilly stupid that in Jonny Loverman's words, "You'll shit."

Knight Rider Journals; Forum Responses, Page Six

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Knight-Rider-Nutty Finn Chronicles Kitt's Dash [Internal]

Friday, we posted on a company that to culture at large, has been locked in a dusty hallway of speed-equipment history. Thankfully, Iowahawk's on the case and promises even more Turbonique goodness, including the story of the corporation's demise and a chrome-plated, rocket-powered blower to be mounted on a suitably-appropriate project vehicle which has yet to be determined. In the meantime, wielder of bass and WRX, Jonny Loverman, has kicked down a link to glorious Turboniquity of days gone by.

Turbonique Gallery 1 [Rocketman]

Related:
Turbonique: Totally the Best Company in History [Internal]

While we were out and about with Jonny Loverman the other day in a Schnitzer-tuned 6-Series, we got no attention from women. Later, rolling through Santa Monica in his hotted-up Impreza five-door (like punk, but it's a car!), a hot girl totally blew kisses at us. Quoth Jonny: "I still don't understand why you got the kisses in the WRX and not in the Schnitzer..." Our theory after he jump.

"Because chicks feel sorry for cute boys with five-day growth in sunglasses and work jackets riding shotgun in hatchbacks. They don't feel sorry for those same guys in ridiculous BMWs.
Jesus, Jonny, aren't familiar with the concept of the mercy fuck?
That's how I roll these days, yo." (Somehow we get the feeling that even though he drives a non-hatchback STi, our boy TexansAreHot understands the power of this angle.)

Also, when we lived in Austin and the East Bay, we noticed the leaning of lesbians toward products of Fuji Heavy Industries. Reader David snapped this shot at a Twin-Cities-area Walgreens of a distaff-couple-owned Legacy that'd sloughed off any pretense of Baja-ness and went full BRAT. We love this car. We'd blow kisses to those girls anytime, no matter how averse to advances made by those of our gender they may or may not be.

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More El Caminos [Internal]

Avalanche looms overhead/Airplane flies overhead/Important man sits by the window/Sucked out of the first class window

We were talking about the greatness of Candy Apple Grey with Jonny this afternoon. We didn't talk about Corvairs, which mostly remind us of a stripper named Holden in Las Vegas we had a wonderful time with last fall. She owned a Corvair. We wish she would've owned a Holden Ute SS. We would've bankrolled her college education. We mostly talked about the Clash and our personal memories of Joe Strummer; we never did bring up H sker D , but when we read about Norman Michaud of the Commonweath of Mass., a man who built an experimental aircraft with a Corvair engine over a period of ten years, we thought of three things — Holden, Ralph Nader, and "Crystal" by H sker D . We'd totally burn him a CD with her picture on it, except that we don't have a picture of her. [Thanks to the T-blt for the tip.]

Pilot Survives Experimental Plane Crash [Yahoo! News]

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Flying Car Spotted in Australia [Internal]

We were introduced to Jonny Lieberman by a girl who could rebuild the top end of a motor and suck a golf ball through a coffee straw. We highly recommend her. In fact, our first meeting occurred in mixed company in a bar where women removed their clothes on a stage. Needless to say, Jonny's good people. It's also rumor'd that he may be Satan, but that's neither here nor there, is it? Apparently, Farago thought pretty highly of him, too, becuase he's unleashed Lieberman on Jeep's decision to build a non-Trail-Rated utelet.

Sayeth the Loverman:

"While it's true that current Jeep buyers don't climb every mountain or see a stream and automatically think there's a ford in their future, they find their Jeep's untapped capability endlessly reassuring and secretly thrilling— like a condom in their wallet or America's nuclear arsenal. The Compass reveals a radical change in Jeep's marketing strategy, an attempt to court "non-traditional buyers." Or, if you prefer, they're chasing people willing to trade the actual, honest-to-God possibility of off-roading for the mere foggy idea of it."

Ouch.

Jeep Heads South [The Truth About Cars

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The Truth About Junketeering [Internal]