Are American Motoring Journalists too forgiving?

[:Exige:]

VTECs post reminds me of the Exige .. awesome track tool, terrible general road car. Needs to be revved high to get the most out of it, tiny fuel tank, uncomfortable seating, feet freeze while the upper body cooks, sills constantly leak, interior starts to smell of oil and petrol (i quite like that though, not to everyones taste), ear bleedingly loud, expensive to run, front gets chipped to death, needs regular maintainence. Someone can like the Exige very much, but in reality stats can only be implemented in perfect condition .. in the Exiges case, on track. However .. someone could like the Exige for its flaws .. like me. I like the raw sound, steering and smell and the fact that the car you are driving is special. Thats one reason I dont like Porsches much .. their too well made .. all you can do is drive it .. you have no reason to get your hands dirty in the engine bay because it doesnt brake. Some people like Porsches for that. This is opinion.

Edit : Whenever I tell an American that an Exige has a 1.8l engine, they immediatley thinks its slow and their Mustang could smoke it (They are not that car intelligent though .. I believe no-one who has contributed to this thread will share their beliefs)

Edit again : Its just clicked to me where your going with the statistics thing. For example .. What would happen if Chevrolet brought out a Mustang rival with a 2 litre Flat four? It wouldnt sell. Americans in general would rather skim an article for "v8" "6.5 litre" and "big block". Luckily most of the members of this forum are not in that majority. This is why it will be so hard for america to bring out cars with less emmisions .. because they cant sell anything without a V8 unless its extremely green (reason that the Prius is popular in the US).

[Matra et Alpine]

RETRO is a great mag for those who like their cars a little "older".

Some of them with seriously MODERN upgrades

[:Exige:]

Great .. cars are like a good Whisky Anywhere in particular I can get it? Would WH Smiths do it?

[Matra et Alpine]

On sundays Top Gear (I know you love that show Slicks, which is why I'd rather not use the example, but I dont think it detracts from my point) they test drove the Evo 8 MR FQ400. I was already quite impressed by the figures published for it, so I was interested in the write up it got. Overall it wasn't a drastically bad one, it did indeed lap the track in a stunningly fast time, bettering a lot of much more expensive cars. So with this in mind, if I had £50,000 burning a hole in my pocket, I could be tempted to part with it in return for one of these supercar killing monsters. But thats where the niceties ended.

Slicks would have LOVED the accelerate from 30 in top sprint with the Fiat Stilo 1.5 diesel, which beat the Evo over the 1.7 mile straight

Surprised to see the Stig drop the car off boost on the track, but that's why it's a rally-bred car and not tarmac

RETRO: -- Definately in WHSmiths, any decent newsagent can get it. It's getting quite popular http://www.retrocarsmag.com/

[Slicks]

Its Skidpan

Are they on a pan?
Its skidpad...
"roadholding, 300-foot skidpad, g"
Example: caranddriver

[Slicks]

AMERICA : Opinion guide by statistics

Elsewhere : Statistics are secondary

Pick any single FACT that is a metric and PROVE it to me. I guarantee you you can't. At every step there will always be a point where science has 'decided' on a statement or value and it forms the cornerstone of the first=principles the 'fact' is based on.

It is a FACT that Larry Webster (car and driver) got the C6 Z51 to do 0-60 in 4.1 seconds in the "Almost Supercars" test.

Pothole scenario; You just missed the point. And NOW you want to argue that they can't all test on a pothole. Why not. THAT is an equally valid test than a skid pan - arguably better. But a skid pan doens't really show up handling and it's easy to measure. Nothing subjective needed. So buyers dont' care about potholes - somethign they will encounter every day - but DO care abotu skid pan circles ?
I think you've got that the wrong way round, surely Slicks ???

People driving economy cars etc. obveously dont care about skidpad #s.
When driving around a track skidpad shows how well the car will grip on a flat surface. Like I said it gives you a general idea. (BTW i dont encounter potholes every day, so i dont really care...)

Multiple times: and then take the average ? or the best ?? Either is a number NOT indicative except at the grossest level the experience you will have !! Liek I said 0.1s 0-60 is in the noise floor of the variables.

Take the best.
Its not about the experience you have its about what the CAR can do. A stock honda civic isnt going to do 0-60 in 4 seconds no matter how good a driver you have. What it shows is the quickest the car can go in that particular test.

American journalist opinion: I didn't even suggest that they didn't. I DID suggest that they take too much from the figures. You're twisting it trying to make it black and white and make it sound as if I EVER otherwise. We've been here before SLicks STOP IT

It just sounded like thats what you were going for.

fair comparis: thank you. Now the FIGURES showed that THEY were not a fair comaprison didn't they ? So now we have to use our brains and knowledge of the drivers to judge our view of the validity of the results. Ipso facto the revies by ANY joirnalist. So you agree that figures dont' tell the story and that we have to consider the person driving and writing and our belief in their ability to drive and write proficiently. That's where we started

Yes I agree the driver and such has alot to do with it. But no magazine is going to do an unfair comparison like that, thats what im talking about.

paced road: tut tut "old Slicks behaviour" I thought we agreed neither of us to go back there. Yep a manufacturer went to all the trouble to pave a road for the test/ DUH. erm woudl 'setup' possibly refer to the car then ? Of course it does and anything else was being deliberately obtuse. SETUP as in springs, dampers, coils, geometry to get the right figures. After all the major 'sell' on the Z51 suspension is it preduces squat to impreove 0-60 times Tell me THAT is not to get the good figures

Sorry, you really need to be more specific when posting then, i cant read your mind.
Are you suggesting that the test cars are "better setup" that the street cars. Like the manufactureer tweaks the car and then sends it to the journalisits?

The major "sell" on the Z51 isnt a 0.3 second better 0-60 time... Its a race car like setup thats comfortable to drive on the street, and then smash high end cars on the track.

[Coventrysucks]

Are they on a pan?

Yes.

Pan, derived from -

1. A basin or depression in the earth, often containing mud or water.
2. A natural or artificial basin used to obtain salt by evaporating brine.
3. Hardpan.

[Slicks]

Figures mean nothing.

The Viper article in evo suggests that it is set up to do well on slalom tests so that it gets rave reviews in America. Cars have their gearing set so that you can get to 60mph with as few changes as possible so that they can get a fractionally faster 0-60 time.

Not all cars.
Take the Viper for example, its using big gearing because it can, it has more than enough torque to back it up. Also with large gearing comes better gas milage, better top speed, and its easier to drive normally.

You cannot hide the failings of a car when tested in the real world, away from the track, which is why so many European journo's take cars to demanding roads. If a car can post brilliant 0-60 times and lap 0.5 s faster than another, does that make it better than the car which can cope with bumps, dips and twisty sections of rough, off-camber tarmac that you will be facing every day on your drive to work?

The thing is we are not dealing with cars meant to be driven daily, in the rain, snow etc. These are true sports car, track use and nice weather weekend driving. Its not supposed to be a luxurious ride, its not supposed to have nice interior.

All that track-based testing tells you is how good a car is round that track, on that day, at that temperature and specific humidity. All of which seems pretty pointless to me.

True to an extent, but only with cars so very close in performance. Like I said before a civic isnt going to outrun an enzo under normal conditions.

[Slicks]

Okay, so my choice of the word "verifying" was a particularly bad one, I'll give you that. I'm sure you appreciated the sentiment of my point though.

But on your mini analogy, I struggle see exactly how that reflects what you are getting at. If journalist A adored the aforementioned mini and journalist B detested it, I would read why they loved/loathed it. With that in mind, I'd make up my own mind given the information presented to me, not just side with journalist A because he's telling me what I want to hear.

What im saying is someone's opinion can be totally opposite from your own. So when reading an article and that particular person says he doesnt like car X because it handles too well (this was actually said about the Mini S for example) that might draw people away from it. But in reality some of those people might have loved the way it handled, but are not going to bother now because of a bad review.

As much as I hate to draw upon this particular example, it's the first that comes to mind, so it'll have to suffice. On sundays Top Gear (I know you love that show Slicks, which is why I'd rather not use the example, but I dont think it detracts from my point) they test drove the Evo 8 MR FQ400. I was already quite impressed by the figures published for it, so I was interested in the write up it got. Overall it wasn't a drastically bad one, it did indeed lap the track in a stunningly fast time, bettering a lot of much more expensive cars. So with this in mind, if I had £50,000 burning a hole in my pocket, I could be tempted to part with it in return for one of these supercar killing monsters. But thats where the niceties ended. The stats for the car dont make up the whole picture. When not being driven on the limit of human comprehension, it really wasn't a nice car, it was hard work when driven slowly, it wasn't comfortable to be in for a long time and it required a lot of effort to get the best from it.

I understand what your saying there. The idea of stats though are not to just be judged on alone. Im not saying buy a car because of stats, or track times (unless of course your buying it strictly for performance).

But we couldn't extract that information from facts, could we? If it weren't for the opinions, I could well be sitting here with a £50,000 track tool sitting on my drive, too terrified to try and get it off my drive lest I ended up giving the guy across the road a drive thru dining room.

Yes i see what your getting at. But you have to make your own opinions about the car(after driving it), you cant just rely on the journalists.

[Slicks]

Slicks would have LOVED the accelerate from 30 in top sprint with the Fiat Stilo 1.5 diesel, which beat the Evo over the 1.7 mile straight

Surprised to see the Stig drop the car off boost on the track, but that's why it's a rally-bred car and not tarmac

RETRO: -- Definately in WHSmiths, any decent newsagent can get it. It's getting quite popular http://www.retrocarsmag.com/

Got any vids?
Beating an EVO from a roll isnt much of an accomplishment though...

[Slicks]

Yes.

Pan, derived from -

1. A basin or depression in the earth, often containing mud or water.
2. A natural or artificial basin used to obtain salt by evaporating brine.
3. Hardpan.

This is what i got
"Pan"

1. A shallow, wide, open container, usually of metal and without a lid, used for holding liquids, cooking, and other domestic purposes.
2. A vessel similar in form to a pan, especially:
1. An open metal dish used to separate gold or other metal from gravel or waste by washing.
2. Either of the receptacles on a balance or pair of scales.
3. A vessel used for boiling and evaporating liquids.
3.
1. A basin or depression in the earth, often containing mud or water.
2. A natural or artificial basin used to obtain salt by evaporating brine.
3. Hardpan.
4. A freely floating piece of ice that has broken off a larger floe.
5. The small cavity in the lock of a flintlock used to hold powder.
6. Music. A steel drum.
7. Slang. The face.
8. Informal. Severe criticism, especially a negative review: gave the film a pan.

Is this one of those brit words?

[Coventrysucks]

Not all cars.
Take the Viper for example, its using big gearing because it can, it has more than enough torque to back it up.

Yes, but there are other cars out there which just so happen to reach 60mph at the redline in 2nd. Oh how conveniant...

The thing is we are not dealing with cars meant to be driven daily, in the rain, snow etc. These are true sports car, track use and nice weather weekend driving. Its not supposed to be a luxurious ride, its not supposed to have nice interior.

So American motoring journalists in general only ever drive supercars?

No where in this thread is the type of car reviewed restricted to supercars and track-day cars.

What about cars like the Impreza WRX, or the MINI Cooper?

They are everyday cars. Are you telling me that no American magazine has tested teir perfomance figures?

True to an extent, but only with cars so very close in performance. Like I said before a civic isnt going to outrun an enzo under normal conditions.

No, but what if the Civic is better to drive along a typical road - the type you might end up on during your "Sunday Driver" times. It isn't bumping and weaving across the road surface, or destroying your kidneys.

But how would you put that into figures?

You can't, hence the emphasis on opinion in European journalism.

In Evo's Car of the Year 15 of the best performance cars from 2004 are taken to the depths of Wales to some of the best "driving" roads in the UK. They are all driven by the 11 judges and scored out of 100, then the results are averaged.

The top three cars were covered by just 0.4%, they were the Porsche 997 911 S, Lotus Exige S2 and Renault Clio 182 Cup.

Three cars seperated by £50,000, 170bhp, 1.9 seconds to 60mph and 43mph top speed

If they were reviewed purely on figures the Porsche would win by a mile. The Clio is such a good car that it is as entertaining and as rewarding to drive hard as the Porsche - a result which is based on opinion, not figures.

[Coventrysucks]

Is this one of those brit words?

No, it means an area of hard, flat land, surprising similar to a description of a skid pan.

A "pad" would be referring to an area from which you lauch/land something, e.g. helicopters, rockets.

[jcp123]

1. In America we say skidpad. In the UK, they say skidpan. I'm sure you've noticed "American" a little different from "English", so to speak That's just the way it is. Nobody's right or wrong here, I'll just keep saying skidpad because that's simply how I learned it.

2. I haven't listened to an auto journalist in ages. I regard pretty much all of them in some regard as being biased and full of crap. Not that I hold that against them, it's human nature. But I don't lean on them for accurate, balanced reporting on how a car does. I have similar complaints of the media at large.

[Luciferous]

I think we need to reassess the situation here.

Slicks, either shut up or use quotes better, it's getting annoying siphoning through all the crap in your responses, so people don't take on board what your trying to say.

Even if you look at different types of magazines you see bias. I know that in the local paper's Motoring section, the reviewers don't know squat, and they won't say anything bad about a new car. I think the problem in America may be that most reviewer's do that. I've noticed a couple of times reading American reviews that they are hesitant to point out a car's flaws in any detail, and often change the subject straight away when they touch on a weakness.

Getting stuck in numbers and figures, think of it like this; a truly great car should have performance which is greater than the sum of its parts. Numbers and figures don't give a true indication of a car as a whole, and I think that maybe some US Journo's get hung up on the 'potential' rather than the 'actual'.