Spannerhead Dot Com

It’s not the bolt from the blue its predecessor was. The original NSX literally redefined the supercar, introducing the notion that blistering performance and prestige didn’t have to come at the expense of usability, ergonomics and reliability, and sent Ferrari and Porsche, among others, scurrying back to their drawing boards. The new NSX concept, on the other hand, slots rather quietly into the burgeoning crowd of alternative-propulsion supercar concepts such as the Porsche 918 or Jaguar C-X75. Mid-engined shape festooned with corporate design themes? Check. One internal-combustion engine augmented by two or more electric motors? Got ’em. Shameless plundering of its marque’s history while incorporating as many trendy concepts as possible? Yessir. And so on…

Forgive my cynicism. In spite of its same-ness, with respect to the raw ingredients, the NSX Concept certainly carries its namesake’s torch in key areas: It’s a usable, range-topping halo car that delivers the expected levels of performance and elevates its brand’s image accordingly. And yet—there’s something missing… The shock of the original, perhaps? But how can you engineer a revolution? And anyway, the first-generation car was an easy answer to a surprisingly obvious question; what do modern supercars lack or overlook that could bestow a point of distinction on a new arrival so ingenious as to shore up those oversights? User-friendly, reliable supercars are all around. It’s been done.

I don’t have an answer. What say you? Are you pleased with Acura’s update of the NSX concept? If not, what could they have done differently to better distinguish the car from its rivals?

And whilst you ponder, check out the promo video after the jump, put together, appropriately enough for such a technological wundercar, by the Polyphony Digital team, the same crew responsible for the Gran Turismo series:

Watch the clip!

The early first-generation (’90-’96) Infiniti Q45 is an absolutely fascinating, compelling car. It’s just a shame its automaker didn’t have the resolve to commit to the concept.

The year was 1990. Toyota and Nissan, following Honda’s lead with their Acura luxury sub-brand, had just created upper-crust divisions of their own, Lexus and Infiniti, respectively. For their part, Lexus had done obsessively meticulous market research and development to perfectly optimize their flagship LS400 for the American market, and were rewarded with an eminently successful car. Infiniti, on the other hand, seemed more to shoot from the hip, offering a car that was perhaps less harmoniously in-tune with American luxury tastes, but was a beautifully refreshing take on the range-topping luxury sedan concept.

So what made the Q45 distinctive? Its design, for one—the car was drawn without the snooty waterfall grille that typified its rivals’ looks. Instead, we were treated to a smooth, clean aero look that, if perhaps a bit dated nowadays, is still as striking as it was two decades ago. Next, the car was uncommonly performance-focused, fitted with quick-ratio steering, firm suspension and seating, a muscular 278-hp 4.5l V8 engine and, with the Q45a trim line, active suspension that could raise or lower the car’s ride height in real time based on speed and actively combat body roll in corners. Car publications praised the Q45’s performance and capability compared to the LS400, Mercedes S-class and even the E32 BMW 7 series, but they wondered openly whether the car’s target demographic needed or wanted its speed, handling prowess or daring styling choices.

Their concerns were valid. As it happened, the well-heeled customers in the Q45’s market segment were much more accepting of a car like the LS400, which accommodated their tastes, rather than the Infiniti, which was more challenging but ultimately had the potential to be more satisfying from a driver’s standpoint. The automaker’s initial marketing campaign didn’t help, either, choosing to echo the Q45’s mold-breaking nature by featuring advertisements without a single image of the car, attempting to create a sense of anticipation, but ultimately completely losing the occupants of the car’s target niche.

So what was Infiniti’s response to the Q45’s initial setbacks? A determined show of confidence in their flagship’s ethos, a doubling-down on the qualities that alienated some buyers but would, over time, shift attention in the Q45’s direction as it maintained its distinctives compared to the LS400? In a word, nope. After a few short years, Infiniti veered hard back to the squishy center, softening the car’s suspension, tacking a grille on the nose, and injecting a dose of lard into the car’s responses in a somewhat pathetic attempt to ape the qualities that had made the LS400 a success. But there was a problem: The LS400 was already available and established, and the desperate game of catch-up carried on for more than a handful of years—12, in fact, through three generations, from the initial toning-down of the Q45 in ’94 through its eventual mercy killing in ’06. Through it all, the car got ever blobbier, ever more Caprice-like until, in the end, it was just kind of a nasty lozenge of a luxury car, a shadow of what it had been when it burst onto the scene in ’90: A taut, potent Japanese BMW. It’s a shame Infiniti hadn’t had the conviction to preserve the Q45’s initial identity.

Editor’s note: This post is part of an ongoing series highlighting key decisions I wish automakers had made differently, for divers reasons. Read the other installments here:

• 1992-1995 Pontiac Bonneville
• Honda S2000
• BMW 840Ci
• Eunos (Mazda) JC Cosmo

In a recent editorial for Jalopnik, Matt Hardigree offers an insightful take on the new Lincoln MKZ concept, unveiled at this year’s Detroit Auto Show. Here’s the takeaway quote:

So long as Ford continues to build upscale, cheaper cars on the same platform, why buy an MKZ when you can spend less money and get an equally attractive 2013 Ford Fusion? What’s the compelling case for Lincoln?

There is none. Almost none of Lincoln’s arguments were about product. They were about image. The didn’t even commit to building this car because that would mean talking definitively about Lincoln’s future.

Late last September I wrote a post in which I brainstormed a few paths to Lincoln’s revival. Unfortunately, as the Jalopnik post points out and the MKZ concept itself gives evidence for, it seems the automaker has decided to double down on the style-over-substance-based, badge-engineered-Ford approach.

It’s difficult to understand how parent company Ford could have any reasonable expectation that this strategy would lead to Lincoln’s success. All evidence points otherwise: The automaker has used the same product planning and marketing strategy for years, and has experienced a decline in sales to the point where the brand is barely afloat. In one magazine comparison test after another, the cars generated by this approach have been utterly trounced by the competition, building a negative brand perception in enthusiasts’ minds which eventually trickles out into the larger car-buying population. And just across the way, Cadillac, which had adhered to a remarkably similar image-based marketing game plan for years, has experienced a near-miraculous reinvention by focusing more attention on the dynamics and details of their cars than on creating some kind of illusory image in a would-be buyer’s mind about “the kind of man/woman who drives a Lincoln.” It would be charmingly archaic if it weren’t pitched with a straight face.

The evidence is all around that the “new” product development scheme has little chance of success. At this point, it’s difficult not to think Ford deliberately wants to kill Lincoln.

Behold, the Great American Sports Sedan. The long-awaited indigenous usurper of the BMW 3 series throne. The convergence of all of our uniquely American know-how and expertise into a stunning, compelling car that is…as European as it can be.

Yep, only 40+ years after the arrival on our shores of the BMW 2002, it’s now safe to say that Cadillac has “gotten it,” in the sense that they understand that car’s appeal and have developed a product to match its modern incarnation, the BMW 3 series. It’s not like they didn’t “try”—each successive generation of luxury import-fighter from Cadillac has seemed like an incorrect answer to a question BMW aced way back in the ’60s. And after first trying smaller size, glitz, even smaller size, power and gadgets, by virtue of the process of elimination, the American automaker has come full circle and finally, finally realized it’s the chassis and the drive that enthusiasts crave. So they’ve made something small-ish, nimble, RWD and optioned it with a three-pedal manual transmission. I can hear the collective exasperation of American car buffs: “YES! Yes, that’s the combination we’ve been wanting for ages… What took you so long?”

So now that it’s here, what’s it like? Having only just been revealed, full road tests by independent publications are forthcoming; however, Cadillac put together a series of teaser videos showcasing the development time poured into chassis tuning. Also, Cadillac has finally proven it can build a car which actually handles in the latest CTS and CTS-V, so there’s good reason to believe they’ll do it right with the ATS as well. A good sign Cadillac’s priorities are straight is the commendably low weight of around 3400 lbs, lighter than its ballooning German rivals the 3 series and Merc C-class. The distribution of that weight relative to the wheelbase is close to 50/50 as well, and the chassis tuners would have to be ham-fisted indeed to screw up that combination of ingredients. Power for the ATS comes in a few flavors, including a 2.5l NA 4-cylinder, a 2.0l 270-hp turbocharged 4-cylinder, a 3.6l 318-hp V6 and an efficient diesel further down the line. 6-speed automatic or manual transmissions will be offered; which engines the stickshift will be available with hasn’t yet been revealed. Hopefully all of them.

As much a BMW fan as I am, I really hope Cadillac pulls this off. Not only out of a sense of national pride (though admittedly that’s dampened a tiny bit by the car’s very European-ness), but strong competition makes all competitors stronger, and a excellent ATS will only mean a better 3 series; the Bavarian car certainly isn’t going anywhere. Also, I feel BMW has lost their way in the past decade or so, perhaps growing complacent atop the sports sedan podium, and has allowed weight and an excessive amount of gadgetry to creep into their whole lineup. If the ATS is a more straightforward, “honest” sports sedan, as I very much feel it will be, maybe it will help talk performance automakers down from the ledge of electronic trickery they’ve been teetering on for some time. Might it be that the ATS isn’t just the Great American Sports Sedan, but the Great Sport Sedan Enthusiast Hope, irrespective of nationality?

Not everyone should drop their top, and this adage applies equally well to cars. After a full weekend of continuing to prep my garage for the forthcoming Z restoration project, and extending the sort-of Z theme from the previous post, let’s kick this off with an entry from the Z world:

Nissan 350Z. Shown at top. For a car with proportion “issues,” probably the worst thing Nissan could have done would have been to remove the only element giving it even a hint of interest in profile—the roof—and make it a ragtop. Sadly, they did. The transformation dramatically multiplied the number of “bad angles” possessed by the car. The 350Z’s side view morphed from a quasi-pyramid-like center-cab shape to an amorphous soap bar. And no convertible truly looks good with the top up; but the 350Z deserves special mention for its awfulness, looking for all the world like a symmetrical lozenge with a speed bump amidships. Truly terrible.

Chrysler PT Cruiser. Where do I start? The picnic-basket-like “roll bar?” The bathtub-ish styling? The fact that the once kind-of-plucky retro shape had jumped the shark, past its prime, exhausted its 15 minutes of fame and finally become a complete cartoon with the ragtop iteration? Male, female, young, old, car buff or not; I don’t care what your party affiliation is, driving one of these is a utter affront to human dignity. They should have offered them from the dealer with brown paper bags for the new owners to wear over their heads.

Mitsubishi 3000GT. Take one overwrought, overweight, over-complex Japanese sports coupe. Add a dose of fading public interest. Throw in a poorly-executed, trunk-killing folding hardtop. And garnish with a dash of nearly double the car’s price. Recipe for success? I think not. Over the 3000GT Spyder’s 2-year (’95-’96) model run, its automaker sold a whopping 1618 here in the States. Granted, the folding hardtop was a good idea (the Mercedes SLK would later execute it correctly, sparking an industry trend); Mitsubishi just couldn’t pull it off, and overall it did more harm than good to the car’s reputation.

This one’s tough for me. I want to like this car; I really do. But, like a tragic hero, a fatal flaw keeps me from being able to truly commit my fandom.

The ’90-’96 Z32 300ZX arrived on the scene precisely as I was awakening to my car interest. My dad of course owned the 240Z, so I’d been familiar with the Z lineage ever since I could remember. The ’90s were a time of incredible sophistication and one-upmanship between Japanese sports car makers, and the top-of-the-line twin turbo Z32 was the first salvo in what would eventually escalate into a full-fledged horsepower and technology war. The Mitsubishi 3000GT VR-4, FD Mazda RX-7 and Mark 4 Toyota Supra would all follow within a year or two, but the Z32 was the first, and it had a connection to the “family sports car,” so I naturally gravitated toward it.

A little over ten years after its release, it had lost none of its fascination. I had just turned 21, and celebrated the occasion by dealership-hopping in the area and test driving various sports cars. The local Nissan lot featured an early Z32 nestled securely in the showroom. The salesfolk wouldn’t let me test drive it, but did sit in it for a good while, and the natural fit was amazing—I barely adjusted the seat and all the controls fell easily to hand. It fit me like a glove, and felt fantastic. I would have driven it home in a heartbeat if I had had the means.

In terms of performance, I couldn’t (and can’t) fault it. The 3.0l, DOHC, twin-turbocharged VG30DETT engine pumped out 300 hp, propelling the 3350 lb car to 60 mph in around 5 seconds, and the passive 4-wheel steering system provided predictable and sticky handling.

But…one glance at the engine bay picture above will clue you into my primary gripe with the mechanicals and styling: The packaging.

There’s no doubt it’s an attractive and fast car. But in the process of achieving those peaks of performance and styling, Nissan decided to abandon the traditional long-nose short-deck sports car proportions in favor of a cab more centered in profile. In doing so, they not only bade sayonara to the classic Z silhouette, they were forced to cram even more mechanism (four overhead camshafts, two cylinder heads, two turbos, two intercoolers and all the associated piping) into a now-smaller engine bay. I can’t imagine changing the spark plugs or even doing an oil change on the VG30DETT—it’s a complete nightmare for a shadetree mechanic.

So while its lineage, looks and speed exhibit an undeniable pull, the abandonment of the beautiful Z sports car shape, coupled with the thought of owning a car I would dread working on spoil the party a bit. It’s a shame, really. There’s so much good in the Z32.

Editor’s note: This post is part of an ongoing series discussing various generations of Nissan’s celebrated Z-car series. Read the other installments here:

• ’09+ 370Z
• ’84-’89 300ZX
• ’79-’82 280ZX
• ’03-’09 350Z

Let’s get a few disclaimers out of the way:

1. I am not even remotely a professional photographer.
2. These are my general rules of thumb for descriptive (but not necessarily dynamic) car photography. In other words, if you want to communicate the most about your car on an online forum or in a for sale ad, these guidelines should be useful. If you’re gunning for the cover of Super Street, move along.
3. I have broken each of these rules many, many times over the years of photographing cars.

That said, in no particular order, here are a few procedural steps and goals I bear in mind when wielding my DSLR:

• Get the whole car in the frame. This seems obvious, but I’ve seen so many Craigslist ads and eBay listings with half the car in the image I feel obligated to include it.
• Avoid midday sun. Light shade is best. Bright overhead light tends to shade the wheel wells and deemphasize the wheels. If you must shoot in bright light, position the car so the sun is at your back so the shadows fall away from the car.
• Contrast with the background. Don’t shoot a white car against a snowdrift, a green car in a grassy field or a black car at night. Be aware of the background and how its busy-ness or simplicity interact with the shape of the car in the foreground.
• Telephoto lens is best. Avoid the “fisheye” look. To communicate accurately the car’s proportions, you’ll want to back away and zoom in as far as you can. This can make getting a steady shot more difficult, especially if lighting isn’t optimal, so consider using a tripod.

• Front and rear 3/4 shots convey the most about the car in a single image. You get the front or rear impression, the car’s profile, proportions and stance all in one photograph.
• Turn the wheels perpendicular to the line of the shot. This is a subjective preference, but I feel strongly turning the wheels 45° or so away from the camera give the car a more dynamic presence that it would otherwise have, and can also help mask (though not eliminate) unsightly wheel-to-fender gap.
• Wash and clean out the car. Again, a rule of thumb that should be obvious, but I can’t remember how many dirty, filthy interiors I’ve seen on Craiglist and eBay. It’s basic, really.

• Use wide angles for interior shots. Wide angles match the natural tendencies of our eyes when in enclosed spaces like a car’s interior. I like to include at least one shot of the steering wheel, dashboard and console area front the exact spot my head would be if I were driving.
• For post-processing in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, three dialogs are going to be key: Levels, Photo Filter and Shadows/Highlights. Here’s what I do when I get an image file into Photoshop: Resize as necessary. Open up the Levels dialog and move the sliders inward to eliminate any flat spots at the ends of the histogram. That done, I fire up the Photo Filter panel and “neutralize” the image, cooling it if it looks too warm and vice versa. Lastly, I play with the sliders in the Shadows/Highlights dialog to optimize the exposure. Most of the time, after all that’s done, I’ll have a very presentable image.

Well, it’s not pretty.

At least, the fascia isn’t, not in the classical sense. Straining so hard for a new theme, like a rock band trying to play the same four chords in a new way after countless bands have done the same, the Lexus LF-LC concept’s nose ends up looking merely different for the sake of being different.

Now, I can’t fault the incredibly rakish proportions, but the traditional distribution of visual masses in the LF-LC’s profile just reinforces the contrived nature of the front end styling. Being a product of Toyota’s California-based design studio, the same crew who penned the original’s Lexus SC coupe’s flawless lines, I had high hopes for the new concept. Let’s just say my expectations weren’t entirely satisfied.

As mentioned above, the car’s proportions are classically correct and right on the money. They also pay considerable homage to those of the first generation SC coupe, eschewing the second generation’s truncated boulevardier stance entirely in favor of the first-gen’s traditional GT shape. There’s more than a hint of the big-brother LFA as well in the impossibly low greenhouse, rocker panel intakes and straight line across the rear haunches. And I even detect a touch of Ferrari 599 GTB in the way the C-pillars become notable styling elements as they tango with the fenders and rear glass.

That said, I can’t help feeling that it’s a uneven mismash of ideas, holding a kind of uncomfortable tension between the classic and avant-garde. In a way, the LF-LC presents interesting similarities and differences to the recent Jaguar C-X16 concept. As I pointed out in my analysis of that car, its automaker produced a crumpet-collector to nearly rival the original E-Type, but given Jaguar’s recent production-level design decisions, the concept hewed far too closely to the classic Jag shape, trapping the company in the past, visually. Lexus, on the other hand, attempted to push the envelope with the Remington-shaver-meets-funhouse-mirror proboscis of the LF-LC; however, the Japanese automaker has no long and tired association with the classic GT shape or styling cues. Unlike Jaguar, they’re unencumbered by the past and could have created something arresting, showstopping, timeless, free from a concern that critics (like myself) would dismiss it as a retread of old themes—and they almost did, as evidenced by the car’s proportions, but… Then they grafted on the corporate front end, dashing hopes of a completely pleasing shape. So close, Lexus, so close.

Let’s consider the average enthusiast impression of the McLaren brand before the arrival of their MP4-12C exotic sports car, a perception inevitably built on their one and only offering until that point: The F1 super-exotic. Even though it was eclipsed as the top road car speed record holder by the Bugatti Veyron, the McLaren F1 still held a unique place in the car buff’s estimation, mainly by virtue of the fact that it reached its mid-200 mph top speed in a very different way than the later Veyron. Where the Bugatti is a brute force, quad-turbocharged, AWD, 4000 lb monster, the F1 was a light, pure, naturally-aspirated bantamweight, ostensibly more focused on delivering the ultimate driving experience rather than serving as a kind of mechanical placeholder for automotive superlatives. The F1 was the result of the first absolutely zero-compromise mission to deliver the ultimate road car, and while the Veyron may pay lip service to that pursuit, it’ll never be the first, and as such gets a bit swallowed up by history, so to speak. That isn’t to diminish the achievement of the Bugatti in the slightest, just to point out that the F1’s star wasn’t completely (or even mostly) eclipsed by its replacement atop the the leaderboard.

And for a long time, the gestalt of the F1 personified the McLaren road car brand. It was the one great film that defined a one-time director, and lost little of its capital even after the Veyron’s arrival, owing to the cars’ differences as noted above. That said, car buffs were understandably a little skeptical when the development of a sort-of sequel was announced in the MP4-12C. What kind of car would it be? Would it attempt to leapfrog the Veyron and reclaim the “world’s fastest road car” mantle for McLaren? Or would it set its sights lower and aim for more “pedestrian” supercars? The automaker chose the latter course, placing the MP4-12C in competition with rivals like the Ferrari 458 Italia and Porsche 911 Turbo GT2. In its day, the F1 reigned supreme over those companies’ offerings, and elevated the McLaren brand with it; we stood in awe of what the automaker had accomplished. In light of that, what does the MP4-12C do for the image of McLaren as a purveyor of world-beating iron? Does it lower the prestige of the name to have a car that can be beaten quite credibly in certain categories by less patrician road-eaters? Or is a smart move on McLaren’s part, expanding their customer base to provide more development resources for another assault on the Veyron? What do you think?