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It’s not our normal practice to publish “teaser” stories, but given the importance of this particular car to our reader base here at Speed:Sport:Life, I’m going to break tradition a bit to let you know that we’ve just returned from the 2009 Audi A4 press preview at Infineon Raceway in sunny Sonoma, CA.

Assuming we survive competing in the 24 Hours of LeMons this weekend at Altamont, we’ll have a complete and detailed drive report on the A4 early next week, including some amusing Tommy Kendall-style in-car, on-track video footage and an exclusive “walkaround” interview with Carter Balkcom, Audi’s product manager.

In the meantime, we can set the record straight on one important point. If you’ve been worried that Audi would “ruin” the new A4 - that this all-new, considerably larger car has deviated away from the pattern that has made the A4 the most successful car in Audi’s history - there’s no need to worry. This one’s a solid winner from stem to stern and we feel confident that it will be the clear market leader in its segment. Our time on the road and around the track revealed a sedan which is superbly satisfying in every regard, packing 95% of the comfort and space found in the A6 in a dynamic package which is far faster around a road course than its predecessor. For the rest of the story - including the “secret” combination of “Driver Select” settings which unlocks the possibility for maximum racetrack hoonage - come back Tuesday morning and read our full-length, full-detail article. See you there!

Our dedication to our listeners knows no bounds here at Saucer Shaped Ligands Radio, and it’s with that in mind that we present to you the latest edition of our patent-pending automotive news adequacy. I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t entirely in my right mind when I recorded this. After shotgunning a Mountain Dew or two though, I regained my sanity enough to edit out the twenty minutes of circular rantings about how the stack of papers and soda cans on my desk was slowly rearranging itself into a gestalt of wood pulp and rolled aluminum in order to exact its bloody revenge on me and my family. So if the sound levels in the podcast are a little uneven, you now know why. Share and Enjoy™.

 

 SSL Radio 4/30/08 [7:48m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Gather ‘round, everybody. I have an epic tale to tell. It’s the story of how Fake Luxury Conquered The World. There are heroes, and villains, and sweeping vistas, and if we don’t exactly have a princess cooped up in a tower, we might have a few sexually liberated young women in airbrush-mural vans. Interested? Follow along with me as we return to the dark days of the early Seventies…

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Yes, it’s another hideously late podcast, which means that it must be getting close to that magical time of year, when those of us who are so obsessed with learning stuff that we (well, not us usually, our parents) are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars a year for the privilege to do so start pulling our hair out with frustration and stress as we approach the dreaded Final Exams. This will play havoc with the posting schedule for the podcast over the next few weeks, but hopefully they won’t be up as late as the last two have been. This week, BMW finds yet another place where they can go racing, the UAW starts throwing its weight around again, I express an opinion that’s sure to finally get me some bona fide hate mail, and a potentially world-record holding vehicle within the reach of the average consumer on this week’s Useless Automotive Tchotchke. Share and Enjoy™.

 

 SSL Radio 4/23/08 [12:34m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Story by Jack Baruth, photography by Matt Chow and Zerin Dube

Are you a shy person? Do you suffer from social anxiety? Are you uncomfortable with being the center of attention in public settings? If the answer to any of the above questions is “Yes”, then we respectfully suggest you avoid the 2008 Dodge Viper SRT-10 convertible, particularly in the eye-searing shade of blue applied to our test car. As a Viper owner, you will be permanently on the American road’s center stage, targeted by dropped jaws, pointed fingers, and comments ranging from the predictable “NIIIICE CARRRRR!” to the rather confusing statement delivered to us at a gas station by a fading flower of a middle-aged Texas woman in a Town Car -“We’re so proud of you.” Who was “we”, and of whom, exactly, were “they” proud, and why? Perhaps she’d spotted the manufacturer tag on the car and thought we were affiliated with the intrepid (no pun intended) folks at Chrysler’s SRT division, or she simply wanted to let us know how happy she was that we’d chosen an American sports car over the evil foreign competition, or she thought your humble author was a famous bearded celebrity – one of the Geico cavemen, perhaps, or even Michael McDonald, touring the country in a six-hundred-horsepower droptop while contemplating which Motown originals would be easiest to mangle into blandness for his next album. We’ll never know. Apparently, mere possession of America’s most cylinder-intense sporting car turns one into a public figure, with all the attendant positives and negatives. Learn from our experience and consider yourself warned. Driving a Viper is not for the faint of heart, and certainly not for the wallflowers among us.

If, however, you are a painfully modest or fearful individual who nonetheless feels compelled to own an SRT-10, there is one potential solution, assuming you have the bucks: buy an Audi R8 and hire somebody to drive it around behind you. In the Audi’s incandescent presence, the big blue Viper becomes well-nigh invisible, just another minnow in the school of freeway fish which clump and cluster in the R8’s wake, camera phones aloft and trembling at The Presence Of The Future Among Us.

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Yes, this podcast is colossally late. Real life has once again dragged me away from spending time with you, the listeners, and forced me to pay attention to other things. Now though, we’re back, and we’ve brought a very special treat for you and put it inside the podcast. As far as news goes, we have some BMW news, some legislature news, some endurance racing news, and the final mention we’re giving NBC’s Gear until the show debuts, unless one of the hosts flips a Ferrari over and is killed. Share and Enjoy™.

 

 SSL Radio 4/16/08 [10:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Story by Jack Baruth - Race Photography by Dave Everest

Rain. Today’s race day was defined by the rain - starting miserably and getting steadily worse. The previous day’s race had shown the occasional bit of dry pavement to my co-driver, Brian M., but for my race it’s forty-two degrees outside and almost Katrina-esque in the fury of the storm above. In the 8am practice, I spin the Green Baron Motorsports #187 PTE Neon and run off track at the bottom of the Esses, but have no problem getting back on. Not everybody else is as lucky; the wrecked cars are coming in two and three at a time. Trailers are fleeing Mid-O like the proverbial rats from the proverbial sinking ship. Race Group A, over seventy cars strong yesterday, fields thirty-three entries today…

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Highway 395 is a lonely stretch of asphalt on the back side of the Sierra Nevadas, and one of the most beautiful roads in California. Situated in the Owens Valley, it has spectacular views of the mountains that surround it on both sides. It’s also apparently a very popular place for butterflies and other insects to breed, as they were doing so in the middle of the road. A great many flying insects met their fates that day, but my personal favorite was the butterflies. They were large enough that you could see them arc into the windshield, where they exploded in a sticky yellow burst that sounded like a small bird detonating on the glass. One particularly good one was smeared from the bottom of the windshield almost to the top. It was a very amusing way to pass time between Lake Tahoe and Death Valley.

Anyway, this week, we have more news on the Tata Motors purchase of Jaguar and Land Rover, BMW considers shedding the pounds on future M cars, Jay Leno weighs in on the potential suck of the US version of Top Gear, and fancy footwear on this week’s Useless Automotive Tchotchke. Share and Enjoy™.

 

 SSL Radio 4/7/08 [12:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Story and Photographs by Jack Baruth

Three months ago, we reported that the Cayenne GTS manual was in danger of cancellation, but as you can see, we were dead wrong. The first manual-transmission Cayenne GTS in the state has hit the ground and it’s in our hot little hands for a long-term test.

Normally, when a magazine talks about a “long-term test”, they mean they’ve finagled a free press car from a manufacturer for somewhat longer than the normal one-week period, but this time we mean long-term. As in, we’ve managed to drop almost ninety-four “stacks”, which is to say, $93,800, on a 2008 GTS of our very own. Props go out to our good friend, “The Big Dog”, who made this possible by opening his wallet just a little farther than was prudent. With the keys in hand, we immediately set out to do what Porsche designed the Cayenne specifically to do: namely, haul some parts for our Neon ACR race car.

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If there’s one thing we can’t stand here at Speed:Sport:Life (not that there’s only one thing we can’t stand, I think you all know by now that there’s many, many things we hate here), it’s a tease. Indian manufacturer Tata Motors has spent the last few months playing a “will we/won’t we” game with the automotive community, looking for all the world like they’re going to snatch up Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford, but never really quite committing to it. Well, they’ve finally finished off that third scotch, walked up to the bar and sealed the deal with Ford after spending the night forcing us to watch them try to sneak peeks down their dress.

On Tuesday, and in a move that shows you exactly how timely we can be with important news, I don’t mean today, I mean last week, Tata officially announced that it has purchased Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford for $2.65 billion. This completes the gutting of Jacques Nasser’s dream of creating a premium line of marques owned by Ford, as the only remaining brand in the Premier Auto Group is Volvo, which Ford has said is not for sale. As an added bonus for taking the burden of owning a car brand whose reputation is about to shoot up into geosynchronous orbit and is set to break all sales records away from Ford, Tata receives ownership of the Daimler and Lanchester brands through Jaguar and the Rover brand through Land Rover. Daimler, which is licensed from Daimler AG from an eons-old agreement, is used to make even more premium versions of the Jaguar line, and Lanchester hasn’t been used since the 1960’s, but they might be able to license the name. The hidden cash cow of this deal is quite possibly the Rover name, as Shanghai Automotive bought the rights to the Rover line but Ford exercised its right to buy the Rover name before SAIC had the chance, and I don’t doubt that they’d pay a good amount to be able to market their mediocre and relatively ancient designs with the name that was previously associated with said mediocre cars. Hopefully this will give Ford the shot in the arm it needs to pull itself out of its hole, and that Tata doesn’t proceed to run Jaguar and Land Rover into the ground.