Sometimes Your Dreams Come True… for Someone Else

By Christopher A. Sawyer

I was going to run a story about the latest M12C McLaren if for no other reason than it provides an excuse to run a photo of a McLaren M8D Can-Am car. However, as I looked over the press release on the McLaren 12C GT Can-Am Edition, I noticed a link to a YouTube video (below). Curious, I went to the site to see what it contained.

I expected rolling footage of the new car — which has an unrestricted version of the engine in the 12C GT3 race car, as well as a passenger seat and an optimized aero package — and maybe some film of the Can-Am car. Unfortunately, it didn’t contain any video of the race car, but the beginning segment reminded me of a program I had forgotten; my idea for a series of commercial-like videos for Lotus.

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What Sense Does This Make?

By Christopher A. Sawyer

A recent trip to Hyundai/Kia’s technical center in Ann Arbor jogged my memory and reopened my eyes. While touring the new environmental dynamometer test area, John Juriga, Director of Powertrain at Hyundai/Kia America, pointed to the barrels of indolene. This is the fuel the government mandates be used in testing for emissions and fuel economy. With 17 major fuel blends across the country and approximately 96 total blends (including summer and winter, as well as major and minor regional formulations), having a control fuel makes a lot of sense. With it, emission and fuel economy measurements are apples-to-apples.

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The Return of the Coupe… as a SUV

By Christopher A. Sawyer

I remember being at BMW’s assembly facility in Spartanburg, South Carolina for the launch of the X6. The drive event took place on a dreary, rainy day with walls of fog in the hills up and down which we would drive, and most of the talk centered around the utter silliness of this coupe-like SUV. Though I will admit to liking underdog vehicles (I have an especially soft spot for the NSU Ro80), I was the only non-BMW person on the launch who thought the X6 made any sense. Unlike my colleagues, I saw it as a sport coupe SUV, sort of like a Mercedes CLS for the faux off-roader. It struck me as the perfect transport for the executive who wanted the high seating position of an off-road vehicle, but not the boxy styling, utilitarian image or even the off-road capability that comes with those vehicles.

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Nineteen Seventy-Six: A Time for Heroes

By Christopher A. Sawyer

American driver Brett Lunger, Mid-Ohio 1976, just days after he helped save Niki Lauda's life.In the summer of 1976, I was fresh out of high school, and an avid fan of Formula One. My brother Bill had stoked the interest in racing, but we all grew up interested in cars as a result of Dad being an engineer at Ford. With five older brothers (including Bill) and two favorite colors (black and blue, you can guess why), I grew up in a house where Road & Track, Car and Driver and AutoWeek were voraciously read (again, thanks to Bill) and both Dan Gurney and Jim Clark were heroes.

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Jim Clark, 45 Years On

Colin Chapman and Jim Clark, Indy 1965This past Sunday, April 7, marked the 45^th anniversary of the death of two-time Formula One World Champion Jim Clark in a Formula 2 race at the Hockenheim in Germany. It was an inconsequential race that took the life of a driver with truly transcendent talent.

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