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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!

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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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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 by Jack Baruth, photography by Matt Chow and Zerin Dube

It’s the space of an eyeblink. Three-tenths of a second. At one hundred and forty-six miles per hour, as the bright blue Viper SRT-10 convertible hammers into MSR Houston’s Turn Six, I am covering sixty-four feet in every twitch of the eyelid. In that space of time, as I apply the first touch of braking with my left foot while simultaneously easing off with the right, - in that sixty-four feet - the Viper strikes in a sudden scream of tire, the world slews sideways through the windshield, and I know, beyond doubt, that I have just made a very serious mistake.

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Behold, our new, colon-filled title! Seriously, Speed:Sport:Life is a much better title than Dubspeed Driven, despite my ineffectual and half-hearted grousing to the contrary, since, as I mention in the podcast, it’s hard to make a quality first impression that shows off our professionalism and dedication to the honest truth about the automotive industry when I have the word “Dub” tacked onto the front of my name badge. And the fact that I’m roughly 20 years too young to be considered a human being in the automotive industry. And my wardrobe, which consists almost entirely of jeans and t-shirts purchased off the Internet. But I’ll be damned if we didn’t fix that first problem! Anyway, we’ve got a quality but short podcast for you this week. Enjoy.

 

 SSL Radio 3/18/08 [11:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Photo credit: Zerin Dube

Photo from our upcoming coverage of the Audi Winter Driving Experience, featuring a driving impression of the Audi A5 Clean Diesel.