Dream Car Tour
Thursday, October 26, 2006
A few people asked for more details about my wild day of supercar test driving, so I decided I would build a little web site to summarize my thoughts of all the cars I drove along with throwing in some pictures and a video. Building this site will also be an experiment for me to test the usefulness of creating a web page as a way of recording an event in my life for future viewing. I am curious as to how long something like this personal blog page can survive.
Before I get started with my thoughts on each car I will give a quick summary of how all of this happened. Basically, it was the best birthday present I was ever given. My wife Suzanne came up with the idea during a moment of pure genius, and found this site. I never even had any idea that something like this was possible: a company that lets you drive 6 supercars for about 30 minutes each, all on public roads. I would be taking my friend Paul Rosen along as copilot and he would shoot video and photos as I drove. At first I was worried they would not let me really drive these cars the way I wanted to, but man was I wrong! The owner basically encouraged all of us to drive as hard as we could as long as we remain “safe!” Put someone behind a 500HP supercar and the desire to remain “safe” is a forgotten priority. They said we could go as fast as we dared, and that we shouldn’t get too far ahead of the lead car so that we got out of sight. Within the first minute of entering the highway in Jersey we all found out that all of these cars go well over 100 in the same time that most cars can get to 60. A moment I will always remember is when I was just getting familiar with the first car, while driving well over the speed limit on the Turnpike, all of the sudden the Ferrari F430 came screaming by us at twice our speed. He must have hit around 140 at that moment. I imagine he probably peed his pants.
Well that is enough of a background for you to get an idea of how amazing, and crazy, this day was. We were shown how to start each car and that is about it. The first time you drive one of these supercars, you are on some twisty road and you have no idea how the paddle shifters work or what the limits are of each car. We were treated with respect, yet the whole time I was thinking that this guy was insane for giving us the keys to the best and most expensive super cars in the world.
3 Hours and 120 miles of driving 6 Supercars
Aston Martin Vanquish
The top of the line Aston was the first car I drove. It was also the first time I ever used paddle shifters. Right away just driving out of the garage as we left on our way it was evident I had never driven a car in this league. The interior was drop dead gorgeous, with the nicest materials of any of the 6 cars I would drive that day. The retro European white gauges were a nice touch, and everything had a nice feel to it, even compared to my BMW (some of the car interiors didn’t come close to my much cheaper BMW.) The sound of the engine was louder than my M3 on the inside and much deeper, like the Corvette I would drive later.
Once we hit the highway I noticed right away that it was way faster and also cornered much flatter than my M3. This car fits in no specific class. It is a luxury GT sports car, and yet also a flat out supercar. It is 6 days later as I write this now, and I can say now looking back that the Vanquish was the most beautiful car I drove that day, with the nicest interior in terms of quality. As the first supercar I would ever drive, it was everything I ever imagined it would be. I’ll take mine in this same color!
BMW M5
The second car was the M5. I had been looking forward to driving this car since it came out. It is the only supercar that could realistically be in my future, say if I get a $50k raise or something. Later on in life I can see myself owning a Porsche 911, but the M5 I could have now, with ample room for 5. Within one minute of getting behind the wheel, any doubt that this 4 door sedan was also a supercar evaporated instantly.
(The driving instructor said he can beat his friends driving the M5 when they are in the the more exotic cars.)
Upon powering up the car, the first thing I did was go through the magic 3 step gizmo set-up ritual to unleash the beast within this sedan. First you hit the button on the console marked POWER. This raises the engine from 400 to 500HP. Just like that. Next you hit the M button on the steering wheel, which turns up the active handling for totally flat cornering and a stiffer ride. Finally you hit another button by the shifter, this one vaguely marked. This button selects a preference for a shift program that the owner had programed into the computer during the car’s set up procedure. You have to set dozens of preferences, on an M5 you see. Well this setting put the SMG shifter into race mode. The Vanquish did not have this mode. Flooring the M5 felt similar to the Vanquish, but the shifts were much quicker, causing the car to chirp – not just in first and second, but 3rd gear, at around 80mph! As impressed as I was with the shifting of the Vanquish, the M5 shifted even faster and harder. I had never felt this BAM,BAM,BAM type of shifting before... but the M5 wasn’t the only car I would drive that would shift hard like this. The Ferrari and Lamborghini shifted like that as well.
Comparing the M5 to my M3, I could tell that this big 4 door actually handled better than my M3, with its superior active suspension technology. With 160 more horsepower, it was also much quicker than my M3 even though on paper the M5 only looks a little faster. One weird but useful feature was the active side bolsters in the seats, which are relatively loose until you cut the wheel hard. Suddenly the side that your body pushes on pinches inward to hold your body still. This car is like a robot. It also had a heads-up display and a motorized tilt wheel that moved up when you opened the door.
In conclusion, the M5 really was almost as fast as any of the other supercars, but you didn’t FEEL like you were in a world class sports car until you drove it. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to drive it too much- it was the worst section of the trip for driving, so I never got to really appreciate the M5 as much as I wanted to. What I remember most is how much better it shifts and accelerates than my manual shift M3. I realize that this M5 is a generation newer than my 2004 M3. Perhaps this is how the new M3 will shift and accelerate.
Until then, I’ll take this M5, in the same color blue.
