About 18 months ago Subaru brought a then brand new Impreza by the office. It was Ugly! Capital U and everything. I pointed as much out to Subaru’s PR dude, who replied, “We don’t waste money on designers, and we pass those savings onto our customers.” Funny, of course, but for as long as I can remember, Subaru’s have been happily that: Ugly.
But there’s beauty in those bad looks. Remember back a decade ago when the original “Bug Eye” WRX finally came to the U.S.? Everyone panned the looks, even though they loved the car. As for me, I bought one. I was actually going back and forth between the $25,000 WRX Sport Wagon and the $45,000 Audi S4 Avant with that nifty but big hits to the credit card prone 2.7-liter, 30-valve twin-turbo V-6 (I was still riding the dotcom bubble pretty high at that point). Looks-wise, it was a home run for the B5 Audi. However, the Subie drove better, felt quicker and saved me $20K (which I blew on an art gallery), so I bought a 2002 WRX in October, 2001. Two weeks later I lost my job.
I thought the WRX was ugly back then, but boy has it sure aged nicely. Ask most car guys and they’ll say the same. I’ll go so far as to say that original U.S. WRX is a future classic. When Subaru refreshed the Rex one year later with those squared off lights, the car somehow got uglier. Then in 2005 they introduced the “We’re Born From Jets, Too!” look somehow the car WRX was even uglier (I bought one of those, too). In 2008 they totally made a hash out of everything with the 3rd generation car, crammed in an emergency refresh and have progressively burned and blistered the poor thing up to its current, totally not attractive state. To summarize, as each new WRX has been uglier than the one that came before, the older cars get better looking as time goes on. That’s not the case with the bass boat sparkle blue one that debuted last week.
Designed by Osamu Namba, everyone standing around the WRX Concept was dumbfounded when they yanked the cover back. People simply loved it, especially those under the age of 30. My personal reaction was a bit more muted and circumspect. I see quite a bit of Jaguar in that nose (I’ve been alternately calling it the WRXF, WRXJ and the WRXF-Type), an equal sprinkling of Nissan GT-R and Lexus IS-F in those slits behind the front wheels, and a whole lot of Chris Bangle in the butt – a blend of E63 and E92 – and the roofline comes straight off the Mercedes-Benz CLA. Lexus pulled a cut and paste job like this with the GS; the entire car is nothing but Audi and BMW cues with that grotesque Predator-with-his-mask-off grille. As for the WRX, it’s just an admittedly purposeful looking mashup of current design cues with some cool headlights and taillights. It’s neither actually stunning nor grotesque, and the middle of the road is the best place to get run over. Unlike previous WRX models this one’s not going to age well. It simply isn’t ugly enough.
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General Motors got its groove back in a major way last week. Getting the obvious out of the way, how about that Cadillac CTS! As I wrote on our technical director Frank Markus’s Facebook page, “Swagger + Lighter + ATS-Derived Super Stiffy Chassis + 420 hp/430 torque = DA BOMB! On paper, at least.” Obviously I was talking about the twin-turbo, 8-speed CTS, which Cadillac is calling the V Sport. Think Audi’s S-Line. Caddy even lifted the badging. Hey, why not? I can’t even tell you how many boozy, late nights I’ve spent screaming at folks from Cadillac some variation of, “The Germans wrote the luxury car playbook – just follow it!” And they did, and it’s beautiful and why would anybody pick an E-Class/5 Series/A6 over the swanky, strutting, sauntering and swashbuckling new CTS?
But even cooler than the Swagger Caddy, is that crazy pants Chevy Z/28. Say what? First of all, keeping it a total secret was the right move. Chevy even went so far as to internally refer to the car as “Steve” so that news of the Z/28 wouldn’t leak. My source at GM said he saw the car under a cover, got his hand slapped when he tried to lift it, and was given nothing but a blank stare when he asked, “Is this the Z/28?” Automakers tend to hand out heavily embargoed images to publications like Motor Trend so that we can get them in the magazine while they’re still somewhat relevant. And they always leak out and that’s fine (some blogger in France reportedly leaked the WRX photos). However, keeping the good stuff a secret is totally the right move. See Ford Atlas. In fact, while the Chevy Stingray was without question the star of this year’s Detroit show, the hulking Atlas Concept was the only other vehicle that anyone said boo about.
What’s also wildly great about the Z/28 is that it’s actually a hardcore track day special, the first in a very long time. Yes, there are cars that are supposedly meant for the track, but even favorites like the AMG Black Series have AC, nav, sound deadening, hella leather and the like. The Camaro Z/28 has none of that. Chevy wanted to rip out all of the speakers, but were forced to leave one in for the seatbelt chime. How great is that? Please compare Chevy’s approach to supposed lightweights like the old Porsche Cayman R. Radio and AC delete were options, but I sure 100% of cars sold had radios and AC. Counting press cars, that’s 102%. They did remove the Cayman R’s door handles to save weight, but they left the light up vanity mirrors on the sunshades. A pandering effort wherein tries to cash in on the legacy of a real lightweight like the Carrera RS 2.7, no doubt. The Z/28 is no such thing. It is a track car, full stop. Unbelievably, a Chevy PR person told me I’ll hate driving on the street. It’s just too uncompromising. I love it already.
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As for the rest of the show, I was obviously pleased and proud to see “our” SRT Viper TA sitting up on the stand. It’s literally the same car Randy Pobst used to set the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca production car lap record. If SRT had popped the hatch, all gathered would have been able to see where Randy signed, “Randy Pobst, 1:33.62, February 27, 2013.” I’m one of very few people outside of SRT that’s so much as touched the car (all Motor Trend staff, by the by), and the only person besides Randy to drive it around Laguna Seca. So for me, it was a real treat to see it on high at the show.
The Jaguar/Land Rover stand was pretty happening, and happened to be located top dead center of the show floor. The big news was the debut of the new Range Rover Sport, a big though 800-pounds less improvement over the former model. Looks like a bigger Evoque, which is no bad thing. And really, it looks great. For a dyed-in-the-wool anglophile like me, all those pretty Jags got by blood pumping. Love the F-Type, and love the ridiculous wing on the back of the French Blue XFR-S, love all that crazy looking, down force-generating aero gear plastered all over the XKR-S GT. Flics, as it happens, rule.
Two notes here: The XKR-S needed help and it looks like it got some. We enjoyed that car as an excellent grand touring machine, but we ranked it eighth place out of nine at last year’s Best Driver’s Car because the back end can simply not put the power to the ground. Second thought, Jag has just crossed into BMW territory in terms of stupid names. While not as lame as M435 sDriveIS Gran Coupe (coming soon!), it’s not far off. Would XK-GT have sold fewer cars? Or XK Ultimate? Still, the $175,000 cat looks cool. I was, however, disappointed by the XJ SuperSport replacing XJR. Just the back of it, really, as it’s hard to not like 550 horsepower limos. I’ve long maintained that the new XJ is the best looking big object on wheels. But a glued on mini-spoiler and brash, chrome, sticky-outy quad pipes look garish and mar an otherwise near-perfect shape. Still, can’t wait to drive it.
Speaking of the Brits, I was pleasantly surprised by how good the new Bentley Flying Spur looks in person. This became especially apparent as it the sporty, deep purple example was parked next to the much more formal looking Mulsanne. I still think the taillights are too square and too massive, but other than that one misstep, hubba hubba. I can’t say the same for the Rolls-Royce Wraith. I like the idea of a Rolls fastback. I like how it recalls both the Silver Wraith of around 1950 and the impossibly sexy S1, S2 and S3 Bentley Continentals of the 50s and 60s. I especially like how it recalls one of my favorite cars, the 1949 Cadillac Series 62. But there’s something not quite right with the Wraith. And it’s that garish, tacked on hunk of chrome behind the side glass. It just totally screws up the car’s lines. Still, word on the street is that the Wraith was already in clay when head of RR design Giles Tayler got poached away from Jaguar. The man behind the XJ is set to have his first Rolls-Royce debut with an all-new Phantom in a few years time.
Final thoughts: I can’t wait to drive the Porsche GT3 as it looks simply mental, and how is Mitsubishi still in business?
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