Every car review has a formula: you take the most desirable sports car you can get your hands on, and you take it to the most picturesque back road or race track you can find. And there’s a problem with that.
The thing is, when every review of an Aston Martin or whatever takes the car wheeling down some canyon or around a road course, you start to think that you need some expensive sports car to enjoy a twisty road or race track.
This is not the case.
Even in the most pedestrian, ordinary, invisible, unloved car imaginable, you can enjoy some twisty stretch of two-lane blacktop, or an autocross or rallycross or track day or ice race or whatever. And to prove that, I took the most pedestrian, ordinary, invisible, unloved car on sale and did just that.
This is a new Toyota Avalon, track tested and Jalopnik approved.
I won’t tell you to buy one of these instead of some Porsche, but I will tell anyone who has an unexpected car that they should never hesitate to go out and thrash the living crap out of it. Just watch out for snowbanks.