LA 2016 - PH Liveblog
Enough Euro cars already; time to check out some trucks!
A little conscious I've been focusing on European metal I made a decisive effort to find some proper America, f*** yeah type vehicles as I sit and await my flight home. Come all this way and everything. And I think I've found the solution to my 'Raptor issue' of the F-150 going all Ecoboosted and downsized. It's the Dodge Ram Rebel TRX. And it has a 6.2-litre Hemi V8. With a supercharger. And 575hp. And side exhausts. Never thought I'd find a vehicle that'd leave the Ford looking a little weedy but this'll be it. And it also has a Baja mode, obviously. Sold! Also at Dodge was this Challenger SRT Hellcat, all 707hp and bonnet scooped to the max. Love it. But what if you put this engine and off-road ability together? What if you put a Hellcat engine in a Jeep? Ta-da! I give you the Jeep Trailcat. Hellcat engine, six-speed manual, really massive tyres (39.5-inch BF Goodrich Krawlers no less) and a whole lot of attitude. American enough for you?
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So I feel bad that thus far most of my observations from the LA show have been about European cars. Time to make up for that by tyre kicking some pick-ups! The news is not all good though. I've long had a thing for the Ford F-150 Raptor but the 2017 version has lost its 6.2-litre V8 and now has Ford's 3.5-litre twin-turbo Ecoboost V6. I Tweeted an outraged 'What the truck?!' earlier and got a 'wait and see!' response from Ford PR. And the V6 does have 450hp and 510lb ft against the V8's 411hp and 434lb ft, not to mention a 10-speed gearbox and extra inch of suspension travel (now 13 inches front and 14 back - just the job for dealing with speed humps).
And it has a 'Baja mode' among the six Terrain Modes, which sounds cool. It's even adopted that namby pamby weight saving 'aloominum' construction of the mainstream F-150, though it is (inevitably) 'military grade' stuff. But an eco branded V6 in an eff-off pick-up? What is the world coming to? Next you'll be telling me Porsche has a mid-engined 911 on its stand. Oh...
Dan
An interesting chat with Dr Frank Walliser, head of Porsche Motorsport. The mid-engined 911 RSR race car is his baby and while you might think the decision to rotate the engine and gearbox through 180 degrees was a simple, hard-headed engineering choice there was some soul searching before the decision was made. "It took us 52 years!" he jokes, but the decision clearly wasn't taken lightly. Ultimately it comes down to the will to win though, not to mention the increased flexibility of the rules at this top end of the GT class.
While on the topic of emotional shifts this car's use of the direct-injection 4.0-litre engine is the final break with the old Mezger motor, which had lived on in this car's predecessor while other racing 911s had already made the swap. And the radar collision assistance thing? Not a motorway style driver intervention system, more just a warning there's an LMP1 or LMP2 car approaching from behind and an indicator of which side he's going to pass. It's even colour coded so the driver knows what's coming. Will it warn of another GTE car? "If we have to have that then we have a bigger problem!" says Dr Frank.
Dan
Well, it wouldn't be an Alfa Romeo unveiling without an element of farce would it... Having found the stand and discovered it to be eerily quiet I asked one of the staff what was going on. "Oh, the unveiling is ... outside," I was told, without much more information than that. Because launching the car on the stand would be just too conventional, right? I eventually found the tent only to discover it was to capacity and nobody was getting past our man Babin on the door. Basically because he filled it. Someone helpfully pointed out the car would be in the stand in a couple of hours time. So here I am, tapping this out with my computer on a wall while Babin enforces a strict one in, one out policy with the press conference going on inside...
Dan
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Note to self; if trying to type on a bus on a bumpy US freeway don't sit above the seemingly undamped rear axle. Please excuse any typos that may result... Anyway, as I write I'm seated behind Hans Joachim Stuck, across the aisle from Derek Bell and en route to the gala opening of the brand new $60m Dollar Porsche Experience Center (I'll defer to the American spelling, given that's the official name) taking place alongside the Auto Show.
This is the second American PEC, the first being at the Porsche Cars North America HQ in Atlanta. Given nearly a quarter of the 50,000+ cars Porsches sells each year in America are in California it's little wonder there's such an investment, the facility also home to Porsche's North American motorsports sales and service operation. In road and race car terms there should be plenty to see; if the occupants of this bumpy old bus are anything to go by there should be some interesting folk to chat to as well.
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We were supposed to be driving a car here in California before the show but some manner of paperwork SNAFU means we haven't been. So what to do instead? Well, we went to the Petersen Automotive Museum, still fresh from its refurb and reopening last December. Full report on the visit to follow but we took the option of a 90-minute tour into the vaults downstairs where all manner of fascinating stuff is stored, from it Saddam Hussein's S600 Pullman to Steve McQueen's Jaguar XKSS. No cameras allowed down there sadly so you'll just have to take my words for it when I write the visit up properly. Cameras were allowed in the main museum though and I whizzed around getting a bunch of pics of everything. Some highlights here but any museum that can host everything from the Breaking Bad Pontiac Aztek to a Bugatti Type 41 Royale under the same roof has to be worth a visit!
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Motoring hacks aren't known for being especially sharply dressed types so the choice of accommodation for this trip to LA is causing some consternation. Called The Jonathan Club, it's a members' club in the old school set up in 1894 and seemingly still there in terms of its attitudes to dress and general conduct. Funny to find a corner of California where the wearing of denim is considered dangerously rebellious enough to have you turned away from the bar (as happened to the man from Evo) while god forbid if you turn up to breakfast without having tucked your shirt in or walk around gazing at your smartphone. Sounds all a bit pretentious but I actually rather like it; amid all the LA glitz and paper-thin sincerity you get in most hotels it's actually a novelty to find somewhere actually stuffy and old fashioned. Maybe I'm just showing my age...
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