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I used to look down my nose at this engine configuration.

Sure, my opinion of them was colored by my thoughts concerning the perennial American attachment to big whacking pushrod lumps (which are certainly effective, done correctly), but I was wrong to let my views on the evergreen Small Block Chevy engine taint my perception of V8s in general. There’s a reason many more automakers besides the Big Three cleave to or have gravitated toward the configuration.

Click the image to enlarge.

I’ve always been an inline-six and rotary engine buff. I’ve been fortunate enough to have owned a few Mazda rotaries and a number of inline sixes from a variety of manufacturers (Nissan L24, Toyota 7M and 1JZ, BMW M30 and M50), so my predilection for those configurations’ inherent smoothness and refinement has been cemented for ages. I sneered at the V8’s less-than-optimal internal geometry that meant it could never be as naturally smooth as a fully-counterweighted inline-six. I adopted a kind of snobbish engineering puritanism.

But I’m happy to report that my month-and-a-half of life with my 1995 540i’s 4.0l M60 V8 (shown above) has helped me see the light. It’s a cross-plane design and very nearly as smooth as my old 525’s M50 in the upper rev range. The additional two power-pulses per cycle contribute to the feeling of refinement and give it a lovely noise. And it pulls like a freight train. I may not have completely “come to the dark side” and become an avid fan of the pushrod variation—they’re still too ubiquitous, and I like my cams up top, please—but as of this writing, send me my long-delayed V8 Fan Club membership card.

The motor racing community lost an icon on Tuesday.

No, not a driver or a team—a tree. The slowest corner on the Virgina International Raceway (VIR) circuit, named for the massive oak tree it passes around, lost its namesake. According to the official report from VIR management, the tree fell of natural causes, splitting near the base.

Being somewhat local to the circuit (it’s 1.5 hours away in Danville, VA), I initially thought a gust of wind must’ve toppled the tree; there had been some fairly severe windstorms in the area in the past month, so I was mildly surprised to read there was no warning; the course’s caretakers apparently arrived at work Tuesday morning to find the tree in pieces.

Oak Tree was at least as iconic as the Corkscrew at Laguna Seca and nearly as renowned as the tunnel at Monaco or Eau Rouge at Spa; VIR won’t be the same without it. From the circuit’s initial opening in 1957 through its closing in 1974, then from its reopening in 2000 through the present day, Oak Tree had been a fixture of the track; its most recognizable feature, to the point where it made it way onto VIR’s official logo. I’m glad I got to drive around it one last time with my son a month and a half ago. It will be greatly missed.

Image credit: nsxpo2013.com

The more things change…

At the time it was introduced for the 1993 model year, the major complaint directed at the Infiniti J30 was its puny rear seat volume. One glance at the car reveals its manufacturer obviously prioritized style over function, what with its delicately tapered haunches and miniscule trunk.

Nowadays the “four-door coupe” styling trend, sparked by the introduction of the first-generation Mercedes CLS, is going strong. We’ve seen a whole slew of imitators from the Audi A7 to the BMW 6-Series Gran Coupe and even the Volkswagen CC, and although their barely-usable rear seat space is mentioned, it’s hardly a deal-breaker the way it seemed to be for the unloved J30.

So why didn’t the J30 catch on? Did luxury car buyers overwhelmingly prioritize interior space over style in the mid-’90s in a way they no longer do? Was the buying public so soured on Infiniti’s awful marketing campaign for the brand flagship Q45 (notoriously not even showing images of the car) that the bad vibes overtook its smaller stablemate as well?

Or perhaps the car wasn’t radical enough? For all its swoopy styling, the J30 retains the overall proportions of a traditional 4-door in the way the later CLS doesn’t, not to mention the fact that the Mercedes car has a great whacking V8 under the hood to prove it’s got the moves to back up its looks. The J30, by contrast, was fitted with a 210-hp variant of Nissan’s VG 3.0l V6 engine—a pleasant enough engine, and routing power to the rear wheels no less, but nothing to write home about.

So, combine styling that was just a touch too conservative, merely adequate power and dynamic ability as well as the still-uncertain prestige of a luxury brand still finding its footing in the marketplace, and the reasons behind the J30’s failure to gain a foothold in its target market become clearer.

Still, the fact remains that it is RWD, does have quite a nice engine and is very pretty to behold—those three qualities explain my enduring soft spot for the J30. And I do think Infiniti should receive more credit for creating the first luxury sedan with a styling/function priority tradeoff closely in line with that of the more recent crop of fashion-forward four-doors.

Image credits: edmunds.com, carsnative.com, theautochannel.com

Just leave ’em alone.

Many (most?) efforts by a car’s owner to “improve” its styling end in (visual) disaster. Giving credence to the notion that yes, the car’s designers knew what they were doing, here’s an assortment of cars that came from the factory with wheels especially well-designed and matched to the lines of the cars’ sheetmetal.

E39 BMW 530i Sport. Many bodystyles of BMW of have been fitted with a variety of gorgeous wheels, but the Style 42s (the automaker’s internal designation) that came with the later E39 530i Sport take the top prize. Delicate, detailed, stunning, perfect.

C5 Audi RS6. Audi gave its range-topping early-2000s siege weapon these lovely shoes. Simple but imposing, the lack of a lip lightens the visual weight of the wheels’ design at the same time the turbine-inspired shape, together with the flared fenders, creates the impression of relentless thrust.

1995-1999 Nissan Maxima. I really like what Nissan did here. The spokes are thick and strong, but angled to reflect rotational movement, and they’re finished in natural brushed aluminum, always a good choice.

Porsche 993. Porsche equipped its last great air-cooled machine with these steamrollers. They’re awesomely wide, and the twisted-spoke design makes it look like the engine’s torque is about to wrench the hub clean off the rim. Love.

1961-1974 Jaguar E-Type. And since no list of hot factory wheels is complete without including classic British sports cars’ cleaning nightmares, here’s the most iconic car to wear them. No E-Type, Triumph, Austin-Healey or MG (among others) looks quite right without a set of wire wheels. Don’t touch.

Image credits: shiftmotors.com, edmunds.com, netcarshow.com

If my racing tech represents “arrested development” (the way that of all major series except endurance racing), I’d rather go all out. In other words, if I can’t geek out on technological breakthroughs in the racing machines that interest me for the simple reason that the technology in my 7-year-old minivan is in many ways more advanced, I can at least remain in awe of those who push a specific formula to its complete, utter, ludicrous limits.

Like these guys.

Top Fuel drag racing represents the elephant man corner of motorsports. It’s the freak show. The bearded lady and conjoined twins sit in the audience, cheering on these cars-in-name-only, distorted out of all resemblance to anything you or I would drive to the grocery store. The machines are designed to do one thing extraordinarily well, do that thing for about 4 seconds, then stop doing that thing. In what other arena of competition, nevermind just motorsports, is the window of opportunity for success so small? All the sound and fury of an entire NASCAR race, compressed into a handful of ear-splitting, pavement-cracking moments. How can I look away?

The tech in particular fascinates me. Sure, it’s not envelope-shattering in the innovative sense, but the amount of attention lavished on every decision combined with the sheer scale of it all, from distributor size to exhaust gas temperature to speeds to decibels to power output… I just can’t help but stand and gawk at it all. The above article does a great job documenting the geeky details of a Top Fuel racer’s engine prep. Check it out!

Image credit: hotrod.com

I’m not arguing that these types of cars are unattractive as a rule, although many of them are. Whatever or not they’re pleasing to the eye, the one common visual quirk is that their design has dated itself very rapidly.

What constitutes a transitional model? They can be tricky to pin down at the time since they necessarily define themselves in part with respect to the models that follow them. That said, the main tip-off that a car’s styling falls into that category is a hesitancy in its design, details that lack conviction, that are neither here nor there. Here are a few examples:

Mercedes W203 C-Class. The proportions are well-executed, but the headlights are a dead giveaway of its transitional model status, being neither totally separate nor together but in a sort of “amoebas dividing” limbo.

Nissan Z31 300ZX. The same goes for the Z31 300ZX. Neither fully exposed nor legitimate pop-ups, the Z31’s headlights reveal a lack of resolve on Nissan’s part, and make the car look far more “’80s” than its contemporaries like the Toyota Supra and Mazda RX-7.

Audi B7 A4. The German automaker’s first entry-level model with their now-signature “deep” grille, the B7 generation’s styling suffered from a rare tentativeness, odd for Audi, whose designs typically bristle with confidence.

Volkswagen CC. The first time I saw a CC in the flesh, I admired VW’s attempt to bring the “four-door coupe” aesthetic down into the family car segment, but I also remember thinking, “That design will look very old in 5 to 10 years.” I still stand by that statement—its rear is afflicted with the same malady as that of the W203’s nose: Free-form blobs of taillights, barely related to any of the car’s other design elements.

Image credits: wikipedia.org, netcarshow.com

We need these.

By “we” I mean car enthusiasts, and by “these” I mean Top Gear segments wherein the trio of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May buy classic cars and subject them to a series of challenges, in the process often completely ruining their vehicles.

Watching bits like the Cheap Porsche Challenge (S5:E6, shown above), the Alfa Challenge (S11:E3) or my favorite, the Budget Supercars Challenge (S7:E4), I alternately double over with laughter at the hosts’ antics and cringe as they invariably subject the cars to gaudy paint jobs, cobbled-together modifications and thrash them around the track and on the street. Sure, the cars themselves aren’t expensive—the initial rules of each challenge specify the car must cost a pittance—but many of them turn out to be real diamonds in the rough, the kinds of cars enthusiasts would love to get their hands on and restore. It can be difficult to watch them “go to waste,” and it would be nearly unbearable except that the challenges are so amusing.

All that said, I think the challenges are good for car buffs to watch for another reason besides mere entertainment: As much as we revere our cars and the automakers that produced them, it’s good to be reminded, from time to time, that at the end of the day, they’re just cars. A Porsche, Alfa or Maserati can be dinged, scratched, abused and beat on the same as any other car; there’s nothing about a classic’s pedigree or reputation that gives it the kind of untouchable aura we risk bestowing on it if our only point of contact is through glossy car magazines or concours events. The TGUK challenges bring matters back into needed perspective even as their humor takes the edge off what would otherwise amount to a cringe-worthy desecration of our beloved classics.

Well, my new (to me) car got its pound of flesh. Eerily similar to an injury I had to my pinkie about ten years ago when working on my Supra’s driveshaft (you’d think I would have learned), the BMW’s left front wheel hub backing plate made a nice incision in my middle finger while undergoing a damper replacement, requiring five stitches. I was buttoning up a Koni Sport install, tightening the sway bar end link on the strut bracket and…the wrench slipped. As much as I’ll miss the tactile nature of car work with bare hands, I think it’s time to invest in a good pair of work gloves.

So, faithful readers, everything will be just a little slower for a few days while my finger heals, including updates. I’ll do my best to have some original content up in the next few days. In the meantime, check out our archives, featured series or one of the excellent blogs on the sidebar. Cheers!

In his latest column, a comprehensive rating of automotive brand image “hotness,” Peter De Lorenzo takes particular aim at Acura’s persistent inability to focus their brand:

Acura design is an oxymoron. These cars blend into the woodwork like a gray flannel suit on an overcast day. This is supposed to be the best of Honda? It sure doesn’t look or feel like it. Instead, Acura still exists as a perennial symbol of the confusion that reigns at Honda. What are they doing? I’m not sure they know.

I couldn’t agree more. Take the somnolent nose of the 2014 RL shown above, for example. Acura big selling point is the fact that the headlights feature LEDs. That’s all fine and good, but there are two fatal flaws in that line of advertising:

1. Audi’s been putting LEDs in their headlights for years, maybe not as the primary source of illumination, but it’s profoundly old news, and
2. The last luxury car to use its headlight design as a selling point was the ghastly ’01-’06 Infiniti Q45, and then only because the car’s design had absolutely no other redeeming qualities. Touting such a tiny detail is hardly what I’d call putting your best foot forward, design-wise.

If the latest RL and especially the mercifully defunct ZDX are examples of Acura’s worse design examples, what’s one of the better ones, and a possible clue as to what Acura’s design direction should be? The ’04’-08 TL (shown above). I see these on my commute all the time and they never fail to catch my eye. The styling is crisp, tailored, aggressive and cohesive. The whole car has an arrow-like flow from nose to tail, and the flanks are adorned with unique channels tying together the side markers and door handles. With the contemporary TSX, it exemplified a high period in Acura’s styling history; before and after the mid-2000s their designs were and are mind-numbingly bland.

For better or worse, the attractiveness of the automaker’s vehicles seems to have a direct correlation with their quality as drivers’ cars; more than that, the more focused the design effort, the sharper Acura’s marketing outlook seems to be as well. Honda’s luxury marque has so much to offer; here’s hoping their reflect on their own history and draw lessons from the times when their cars were better received.

Image credits: autoblog.com, netcarshow.com