[s-cars] S-CAR-List Digest, Vol 61, Issue 43

[M Pederson]

Well, ... it's at least two steps ahead of the Nissan GTR, and way ahead of
the AMC Matador and Pacers  J

 

Hey car taste/appearances can be very individual things.  I can remember a
time, back in the early 60's, I thought Alfa Romeo's were incredibly ugly.
How things have changed.  FWIW, as ugly as you may find the car I have to
say that personal experimentation, at least in the Denver area, puts you in
a distinct minority.  The car garners an unseemly amount of attention.  In
fact one of the "funner" things to do since we don't have a Krasusky
available, we have to make do with an Italian imitation, and Amoroso, is to
take the car out to dinner and have it valeted.  It always seems to ends up
right next to the entrance.  Frank, the Don, Amoroso among many of his other
talents is one of the local television stations Car review guy.  As such
Frank is always scoring new manufactures press cars.  We valeted the R8 off
against a new Aston Martin Vanquish at the St Julian's in Boulder, at the
Capitol Grill in LoDo, and at North's in Cherry Creek ~ the R8 not only held
its own in every venue, it was in fact the cognoscenti's pick by a pretty
clear margin at all three.  On another occasion at Elway's in Cherry Creek,
the R8 was parked next to a sparkling new black Ferrari 430 Spyder where
both cars could be observed from the outside veranda.  Watching folks arrive
for afternoon cocktails &/or dinner, they would look at the Spyder, they
would gaze, walk around and take pictures of the R8.  So, ... I can take the
lack of loving for the R8's appearances  J   What's less comfortable is,
well frankly all the attention is more than I'm personally comfortable with.


 

First reasonable offer, and the R8 would probably be gone ..  I mean they
what happened to the good old Yugo & VW bugs days when men were men, and
persons were, well you know persons, and one could be in touch with the
world through the holes in their floor pans etc..

 

Cheers, Mike

 

From: Taka Mizutani [mailto:t44tqtro at gmail.com] 
Sent: Friday, November 21, 2008 9:52 AM
To: M Pederson
Cc: s-car-list at audifans.com; pkrasusky at ups.com; tedebearp at yahoo.com;
mikellardizabal at yahoo.com
Subject: Re: S-CAR-List Digest, Vol 61, Issue 43

 

Sorry Mike, no offense intended, but to my eyes, the R8 is ugly. No matter
how well it may drive, I think it's ugly and won't get one for that reason
alone.

I like the Gallardo's styling.

I don't really like Vipers- they're cartoonishly styled and are too hard to
live with- they get way too hot at the track and are awfully cramped for a
big car.

Taka

On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 11:27 AM, M Pederson <mlped at qwest.net> wrote:

Well, FWLIW I seem to have acquired an R8 (the manual tranny version) back
in May.  Without trying to take sides one way or another, except for the
troglodyte who's made at R&T for their articles not being up to Krasusky
standards :-), and if I'm recalling the publication correctly, a month or
two back they re-did their "Best Track Cars" issue, this time with Randy
Pobst at the wheel ~> ahhhh never mind the troglodyte competition, it was in
the August issue of MotorTrend, http://tinyurl.com/67853u

In any event, the article covered ten (10) cars, including both the Viper
ACR (if raw is what you really want, at least one or two steps up on the GTS
I believe) and the Audi R8.  If it's any conciliation to either of you, I
think you're both right, ..... except you know in Randy's opinion, with a
time of "only" 1:40.92 the R8 (page 3) won notwithstanding the Viper's
putting in a lap 5.5 seconds faster at 1:35.117

As Randy's (& I'm sure Paul's) first High School GF told him, "Hey Boys,
speed ain't everything."   :-)

That said, I have to agree there can be a certain "numbness" involved ....
probably those Altoids Paul's always going on about  :-)  That said, one
thing one can seem to do with almost impunity in the R8 is pile back on
power almost anywhere, anytime  It kind of makes you feel you should have
never slowed down for the corner that much in the first place ... Weird

Cheers, Mikee

-----Original Message-----
From: s-car-list-bounces

Today's Topics:

  1. Re:  LAC: Bond, James Bond - JNR (Taka Mizutani)

Message: 1
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2008 08:39:47 -0500 From: "Taka Mizutani"

I'm not Teddy- but unless R8s have dropped significantly in price, I'd
rather have a used Gallardo .{snips}... Except for maybe the GT3, none of
the new sports cars really has that rawness that some of the older cars
have. Okay, maybe the F430 Scuderia as
well..... Your 930 is the perfect example of what I'm talking about.

Taka

On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 8:34 AM, <pkrasusky at ups.com> wrote:
>
> Wait a sec - you're saying you'd rather have a GTS than an R8???  While
> I've not yet had the priv. of piloting either yet (gRrrrrrrrrrr!), I'm
> having trouble subscribing .....

>  ------------------------------
> *From:* Theodore Chen [mailto:tedebearp at yahoo.com]
> *Sent:* Thursday, November 20, 2008 2:53 PM
>
>  what, the audi R8 isn't on that list?
>
> i drove my friend's new R8 with R-tronic a few weeks ago.  i drove it
hard,
> at my friend's urging, but he was the one JNR-ing it, not me.  can you say
> 140 mph on the 405 in LA?  to be honest, i loved the R8, but i enjoyed my
> other friend's viper GTS more.  i feel that modern cars are somewhat
> sterile.  they are fast and handle very well, but they are more isolated.
> ABS, traction control, stability control, active steering, dynamic roll
> control, torque vectoring, etc. - modern motoring is becoming more like
> driving a video game.
>
> you guys may think me nuts, but i just passed on a friend's immaculate '03
> jaguar s-type r with 64k miles for $14k.  i just couldn't see myself
> enjoying driving it as much as the UrS4.
>
> -t.
>