A Calm and Completely Rational Rant About Reindeer Cars

It appears the festive season is upon us, it’s time to stick up the Christmas tree, decorate it, then leave mother to redecorate it in a much more suitable color scheme that doesn't clash with our rug, or the pet dogs coat so much. The reason I know it’s Christmas time, isn't because the calendar says so, or because my local shopping center is now full of enormous candy canes, but sadly because our roads are now littered with hideous, disgusting, and moronic ‘Reindeer Cars’. 

Words cannot describe how wrong this is..

It’s a big problem in my neck of the woods. Just about every second car is fitted with a big red pom pom, and some antlers, and the number of nauseating ‘Reindeer Cars’ swells substantially day by day. They need to be stopped. Now before you accuse me of being something of a Grinch, and a ‘hater’ of the Christmas spirit do hear me out. I love Christmas time, it’s a great opportunity to spend time with family, receive gifts, and be jolly. The weathers generally good too. And I’m all for decorating the house with Christmas ornaments. But when you stick a red fluffy thing to the nose of your car and some stuffed pieces of fabric that vaguely resemble antlers or rabbits poop to you’re car with the intention of some how transforming your car into a reindeer, you are essentially shouting out to the world that your life is miserable.

But that doesn't mean you have to make everyone else’s lives miserable by making you’re car look horrible.

I suppose these sadists might suggest that decorating your car with reindeer like features is similar to decorating you’re house with Christmas decorations. But it just isn’t. You don’t see people transforming their homes into reindeer's like you do with a car, I suspect this might be because no one is actually daft enough to produce a red fluffy thing and a set of antlers large enough so that when attached to the average sized home it would be instantly recognizable as a ‘Reindeer House’.

These ‘Reindeer Cars’ are almost as bad as the ‘my family’ stickers you can put on your car. The point is, if you've got a pet dog you stick a dog on your car, then if you get a husband, who is, say a gardener, you put a picture of a gardener on your car, and so on. And people then know that you’re not a very good driver and that just because you’re indicating left, doesn't necessarily mean you’re going to turn left. Providing a valuable service to all road users. And everyone knows this so we all just laugh at people who have ‘my family’ stickers on their car even though they are incredibly annoying, because to be honest, I don’t care much about who is in your family. ‘Reindeer Cars’ however haven’t quite reached the joke status yet, so instead they are like a road rage inducing device that should -and I’m being completely rational here - be illegal. Or at least become an over the counter deal, where people look as though they are disgusted to see you buying such a horrid product, like buying cigarettes or condoms. The confused elderly should shout profane words at you, housewives (who are the main culprits when it comes to reindeer cars) should shake their heads, and men, young and old should snicker. It’s the only way we can rid the streets of these reindeer cars and restore order and pride back into motoring.

You poor thing..

Earlier today I saw a Mercedes-Benz, the proud three pointed star was absent, and in its place was a stupid bright red pom pom which I can only assume is supposed to represent a reindeer. I don’t think you can degrade a car much more than forcing it to wear a hideous reindeer costume, especially if it covers its hounorable badge. But how much more can you degrade yourself? Your car is in no way shape or form a reindeer, and it never will be, no matter how much money you spend on car to reindeer transformation products.

So please, stop the reindeer nonsense, you’re scaring the children, and making a fool of yourself and your car. The car deserves better. Unless it’s a Ssangyong.. Then do all the weird reindeer stuff you want, just don’t go out in public. 

New Audi RS6 - It's LESS powerful than it's predecessor. Excuse me Audi, but are you alright?

New 2013 Audi RS6. Take note of the 'quattro' embedded in the grill. Nice. 

What is it with fast Audi’s and looking utterly magnificent? Think about it, the R8, RS5, and RS4 all look pretty damn attractive. I think it might have something to do with the big oval exhaust treatment that is given to the standard cars in order to turn them into screaming track monsters. Now obviously Audi does do a little more than put fancy exhausts on the standard cars to create the RS models, the last RS6 for example had a Lamborghini V10, which is good. They also strapped two turbo’s to it, which is, er, also very good. This factoid was something that RS6 owners – being Audi people – did like to gloat about. 

What a lovely bottom you have there Audi. Exhausts! Dayum! 

Anyways, fancy exhausts aside, the new RS6 that you see here, is a bit of a disappointment if you are one of those people who like to gloat about their twin turbo Lamborghini engined Audi, primarily because the V10 has been ditched for a twin turbo V8 – something to do with global warming and penguins, probably. But this would be ok if the V8 produced more power than the old V10, like how BMW made their twin turbo V8 M5 more powerful than the old V10 one. Except it doesn’t produce more power. The new 4.0 litre V8, also seen in the Bentley Continental GT, and the Audi S8, produces 552hp in the RS6, which no matter how you look at it, is less than the 572hp produced by the old car.

Naturally however, the new RS6 is quite a bit faster than its predecessor, which is good. The 0-100kph sprint takes just 3.9 seconds, 0.7 of a second less than the old RS6. That is unbelievably fast for a behemoth estate car like this, it’ll trouble most sports cars, and even some supercars – think V10 Lamborghini Gallardo. The key to this face altering acceleration comes down to the RS6’s new eight-speed tiptronic gearbox and all-wheel-drive system. The new car also weighs significantly less than its predecessor thanks to the much lighter V8 engine and extensive use of aluminium in the body panels, this amounts to a 100kg weight saving over the last RS6. That’s about six cubic feet of cheese – that’s a lot of weight, and cheese. Top speed is limited to either 155mph, 174mph or 189mph, depending on how much money you spend on the ‘dynamic pack’.   

As with all fast Audi’s you do get all wheel drive, and the RS6 uses the same system as the RS5 – which is a bit shite if we’re honest – so you get a self locking centre differential, and an electronic sport differential at the back. And if the engine is located in the same position that it is in the S6 –infront of the front wheels – then this big wagon will probably understeer like a maniacal, window licking mad man. This isn’t good.

Lots of black. Lots of carbon fiber. Lots of nice quilted leather.

Luckily you’ll be able to stop before you hit a tree though, because the RS6 has enormous brakes. It comes standard with 390mm discs up front, or if you are a bit silly, you can pay lots of money to have even bigger 420mm carbon ceramic discs. You get a bangn’ stereo, lots of RS badges (these are important), lots of cheesy carbon fibre, lots of sensors, and lots of acronyms to stop you from driving you’re expensive Audi into a hedge. There’s also a trick exhaust – which is oval shaped, thank goodness – that comes with switchable flaps to deliver a “full throated sound” in Audi speak or a whisper quiet hum. But who wants a noiseless V8? You also get a raft of fuel saving devices such as cylinder deactivation and start-stop tech to deliver around 28mpg. Not bad. 

Expect it to go on sale late 2013 at around the same price as the brilliant BMW M5. The Audi RS6 sure does have some tough competition. But just look at those LED’s, silvery bits, and oval exhausts.. Maybe, just maybe.. 

Yep, there it is again.. Somebodies good with a pencil.. 

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I had an epiphany. And it’s got absolutely nothing to do with lesbians, or drugs or even self control around dangerous animals.

A few days ago I was lunching with three 50 year old, stoned, lesbians – don’t ask me how I got into this situation –it was incredibly weird, and deeply disturbing.

In the midst of my Schoolies (A holiday with friends after 13 grueling years of formal schooling) adventures, my friends and I decided we should visit the home of the Kombi Van, a town that is probably the most pointless, stupid and ‘hippy’ town in the entire world, just to check things out, see what the deal is with this place, and laugh at some silly hippies.

A couple of days earlier we were approached by a man, lets call him John for the sake of the story. John had a British accent and told us about this fantastic tour of Nimbin – the hippy village - and the surrounding countryside as well as some blatant lies. The tour would apparently take us to a secluded swimming hole with a breathtakingly beautiful waterfall. From there we would travel to Nimbin, and then to another secluded swimming hole for a delicious barbecue lunch, before returning back to our apartment at 6pm.. Right.. Sounded decent, and $45 sounded like pretty good value, so we booked our spot on the tour. Cheers John.

Looks, erm, interesting.. Is actually a rubbish rainbow bus. 

A couple of days later we made our way down to the bus stop, where an ancient bus painted all the colors of the rainbow with musical notes plastered all over it waited for us. We sat down as far away as possible from the three strange looking aged women – well I say three, but I could've sworn at least one had a penis – and closer to some pretty girls who happily ignored us for most of the day. The bus was dreadful, it was smelly, loud, impossibly slow, and the ride was ridiculously rough. 

So we were all happy when we arrived at the first stop, the ‘beautiful’ waterfall which wasn't actually a waterfall, so then we weren't anymore.. It was more along the lines of some large rocks with a minuscule trickle of water running down them, so there was no place to swim – I guess John forgot that minor detail.

Back on the dreaded bus then. I some how managed to fall asleep on the trip from the ‘waterfall’ to Nimbin, but it didn't last very long as I was woken my own skull being crushed by the bus window as we went over some small imperfections in the road surface.

Oh look, they make curries too! 

Eventually we arrived at Nimbin, and we were happy to get off the hopeless rainbow bus again. The first store we saw was called ‘Happy High Herbs’ followed by ‘Bring A Bong’, so you could imagine how apprehensive I was while trying to find a bottle of water and a packet of crisps to eat. I still can’t believe how open the townspeople are about drugs, and the fact that they are on them, constantly. It was just a joke town. Even the fish and chip shop was dodge, it’s called ‘The Stoned Fish’. So we passed on the crisps, water, and hot chips, said ‘no thank you’ to four or five drug dealers, and got back on the stupid rainbow bus, again. 

We finally arrived at another ‘secluded waterhole’ which turned out to be some blokes dam, which was infested with big, scary snakes. How nice. After the bus nearly fell over into the snake infested dam  while the driver attempted to park, we all promptly exited the bus and crowded around some irritating flies which were vomiting and making babies on our ‘delicious’ lunch.

Take note of the shop names.. And the flame decals on the
white Commodore.. 

After I proudly located some fly vomit free food, I was forced to sit with the three, stoned, manly lesbians who were screaming and doing weird things to each other on the bus. It was incredibly weird, and I was very, very scared of them.

I scoffed down my lunch as quickly as it is humanly possible to scoff down sausages and hamburgers, and walked briskly away from the lesbians. I then saw a snake, screamed ‘SNAKE!’ at the top of my voice and ran back to the bus, which is I’m sure, exactly what you’re supposed to do when you see a snake.

We then left the snake infested swamp, and went back home to our snake free, lesbian free, and drug free apartment.

I had an epiphany that day. And it’s got absolutely nothing to do with lesbians, or drugs or even self control around dangerous animals. No it is about ride comfort. I have always maintained a strong belief that a rough riding car is ok, and that I would be able to live with a bone shaking, jittery, uncomfortable, rough riding car. But I was wrong. That stupid, horrible, smelly, uncomfortable, piece of crap rainbow bus was just terrible. It’d drive James May mad, and if it weren't for the weird noises coming from the lesbians at the back of the bus distracting me from the pelvis crushing ride, I would've gone completely mad. 

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Just a typical day when you've got a MK2 MX-5

I was impressed today. I heard a Justin Bieber song which I didn’t completely hate and wasn't forced to aggressively push random buttons on my car stereo until the ‘Biebs’ was removed from the cabin of my mx-5. But I was also impressed by my little mx-5 while having a nice quick fang around a mountain road near where I live, which is in the sticks.

It was an absolute beauty of a road, it was like asphalt spaghetti draped over a mountain top with tight turns massive drops which if fallen into would easily allow you to phone your insurance company – how nice - and long straights where I could crank up the 1.8 liter four pot. To my surprise, the mx-5 is a speedy little fella.  

It was blast, so much fun. Obviously the 1.8 liter engine in the mx-5 isn’t the most powerful of internal combustion engines, but I tell you what, keep the revs above 3000 and it shifts, it feels pretty ruddy urgent too.

Where the mx-5 belongs...

The balance of the chassis was mighty impressive too despite the road being pretty craggy with all sorts of weird cambers. But there wasn't a moment where I felt the unsure push of an understeering front end or even uncomfortable in my bucket seat, it just stuck so well. But of course, being a manual rear drive sports car with no traction control, you can provoke it into some hooniganism, which is jolly good fun, but not very good for rubber consumption... It sucks being poor.

But I had so much fun in the morning winding through mountain back roads I just had to have another go in the afternoon. So after  collecting my sister from school - she was pleased to find I was beginning to warm to the ‘Biebs’ by the way – I took the long way home and had another go and it was even more fun the second time, as I was able to push the car that little bit harder. The silly grin made an appearance.

The practicality is truly phenomenal. On some days you can even
go hardware shopping. This isn't my car, thank god..

As you can probably tell, I’m finding the mx-5 ownership experience quite enjoyable, the car hasn't missed a beat in the two or three months I've owned it, the roof doesn't leak – massive relief the first time I washed it – the tiny boot is able to carry most of my things most of the time, it’s not bad on fuel either if when you’re not doing flat out mountain passes twice a day – which is a struggle, trust me.

But all in all, I think its right to say the mx-5 and I are bonding nicely. It’s a terrific car. 

Hold onto you're toupee's rich elderly men! The Aventador Roadster is here!

Hold onto your toupee’s rich elderly men, because Lamborghini has just unleashed its 217mph Aventador Radster. In fact, if you’re rich enough, and hence elderly enough, you'll want to hold onto you’re whizzing little head, because at 217mph it might just come off and make its way into the enormous air intakes that feed the fire breathing (literally, click here) 700hp V12 engine. Not nice.

Someones pretty good with a pencil ay? Damn it looks good!

But we’re in the 21^st century now, and Lamborghinis don’t really want to kill people as much as they once did. They much prefer to just break you’re neck and make pooh come out these days. But, just in case, to stop you’re head from coming off at 217mph Lamborghini have installed this ingenious device called a wind deflector which, if it’s anything like the one on my car – will do absolutely nothing at all. So, there are also new pillars and a new engine cover – which is very angley, and cool looking- to create a pocket of undisturbed air around the cabin, to keep you’re passengers hair in check and you’re hair – if you can call it that – stuck to you’re head. 

And thanks to the carbon composite tub of the Aventador, no extra pig iron needed to be added to the structure of the Aventador in order prevent 690nm of V12 torque twisting the chassis into a knot. Lamborghni, erm, ‘purists’ will be happy too, because in whisking the roof off of the Aventador, there has been no loss of torsional rigidity, and it should feel exactly the same to drive as it’s hard topped sibling, except for the aural delights of that thunderous V12 engine whose noise is one of the wonders of the automotive world, obviously. Acceleration is virtually identical to the hardtop, with the roadster giving away just 0.1 of a second to the hardtop, so 0-60 takes just 3 brutal, sick inducing seconds. And if you think you’ll notice the acceleration differences between the roadster and the coupe, you’re probably more of a GT-R nerd than Lamborghini’s target audience is.

The detailing on the engine cover is just awesome. Cool color too.

The roadster also comes with two new types of wheels, which are 20” and 21”, and very fantastic looking. And there are also many new colors which are exclusive to the roadster. The green one looks very cool. Very Lamborghini. 

Yep. Still looking good.

But, there is a but. And it’s not something that would bother me, but it might if you’re getting on a bit. The roof is manually operated. It’s made up of two carbon fibre pieces which weigh a total of 6kg, and need to be stored under the front bonnet of the car. While it “only takes a few seconds” as Lamborghini says, I can see it drawing out into the minutes, and then if you’ve got to ask you’re plastic fantastic passenger (all Lamborghini owners have these. Fact) to help you out then you’re not going to get very far.

The Aventador Roadster will cost around $789,000 here in Oz, or around 300,000 Euros... What ever way you look at it, it is a lot of money. You’d have to be pretty ruddy old to have saved up that much, that’s for sure!

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RawDriving's slightly idiotic Car Of The Year Contest!

It’s been a good year. The Olympics were on, so BMW painted a heap of 3 series’ gold and we all sat on the couch for a couple of weeks and became enormous while watching the worlds greatest athletes compete for glory. The Americans nearly named their president after a small, cute, glove. And the Ice-Man, Kimi Raikkonen, returned to Formula 1 and told his engineers to leave him alone in a flurry of Finnish fury which we all found hilariously entertaining.

Golden BMW 3 Series - Shiny! 

And despite all those crooked bankers ruining the economy it’s been a fantastic year for cars as well. The Toyobaru twins were launched, AMG went mad and released what seems like a million new models, so we picked the best one, the SLS AMG Roadster, Porsche gave us a new and controversial 911, as well as the new Boxster, Ferrari replaced its terrifying 599 with the fantastic F12 Berlinetta, Pagani finally stopped making the Zonda and released the slightly hard to pronounce Huayra, there was a new BMW M5, and of course Nissan updated the GT-R, again. All of these fantastic cars have made it to the final rounds of Raw Driving’s car of the year competition, and our panel of experts -which essentially comprises myself, and well, no one else – will decide which car is crowned the winner.

Now, unfortunately, we couldn’t find anyone who would lend us a Pagani Huayra, or any of these cars for that matter, which does seem odd, since the annual RawDriving Car Of The Year award is such an esteemed and prestigious award, we thought manufacturers would tripping over each other trying to get their cars in with a chance, but that clearly wasn’t the case. I was literally stunned to hear that Pagani wouldn’t send us a Huayra, stunned. So our judging criteria have had to be condensed a little. It is essentially what we think looks and sounds good, and has received some kind of praise from a motoring journalist who evidently knows some people at Pagani and the like.

After lots of in depth thinking and watching of Youtube videos, our field of nine cars was now just three; the Pagani Huayra, Ferrari F12 Berlinetta, and the Mercedes SLS AMG Roadster. And from watching Youtube we can tell you that these three cars are absolutely magnificent.

The Mercedes SLS Roadster is a seriously cool car, which unlike its hardtop counterpart isn’t fitted with explosive doors which open vertically to announce proudly to the world that the person inside is a complete spanner. The 6.2 litre AMG V8 is a snarling tower of power that sounds simply incredible and can be heard all the better with the roof down. And provided you leave all of the safety systems on, it’ll even almost go around corners in a sophisticated manner. But that’s not the AMG way. Switch everything off however, and you’ll be giggling like a child, it’s a complete maniac, and it’s flipping brilliant because of it.

Mercedes SLS AMG Roadster

However, it’s not quite as brilliant as the Ferrari F12. The F12 looks more beautiful for a start, and at 730hp its V12 engine even more powerful than the AMG’s. The engine is a masterpiece it howls and screams, crackles and pops, it does everything you would ever expect from a super car, but it can be comfortable and civilized as well, it’s a proper luxury grand tourer. But turn everything up to eleven and you’ll be amazed at just how easy the F12 is to drive, the steering is razor sharp, completely alive, and super quick, the throttle pedal feels like its connected directly to the drivers brain, and the gearbox is mind blowing, its so fast and so seamless that there is no evident loss of power between gear changes, it just keeps on pulling.

mmmm Ferrari F12 Berlinetta

But then you get into the Pagani Huayra. You’re greeted by a sumptuous combination of carbon fibre and leather, the amount of jewellery and detail that has been lavished on this car is simply incredible. I love the exposed gear shift lever; it almost renders the paddles on the steering wheel pointless. I say almost because you’ll want to keep two hands on the wheel when you drive the Huayra hard. It’s an insane beast. Its twin turbo V12 produces the same 730hp as the Ferrari but these two engines couldn’t be any more different. Where the Ferrari is very linear and controlled in its power delivery the Huayra feels savage, insane, and to be honest, a little bit terrifying. You hear the chatter of the wastegates, the turbos constantly whistle and wheeze as the engine makes its way up to its red line. It’s a seriously exciting machine the Huayra. The best way to feel how exciting the Huayra is probably to buy some illegal brown stuff or to think that it has the same power to weight ratio as a Veyron, except drive goes purely to the rear wheels – so Kim Kardashian better be awake if she does in fact buy a Huayra and ruin Pagani forever. Sure its gearbox might be clunky at low speeds but go a bit faster and it’s really well suited to the car. The steering does feel a little slow, especially if you've just hopped out of the Ferrari, but we don’t mind. I would have to say the Huayra is worth every bit of its million dollar plus price tag, it’s an incredible car.

If you couldn't already tell, we like the Huayra quite a lot, and so it is the winner of our Car Of The Year award, mainly because it has flaps all over it like an aeroplane wing which is really pretty awesome, and it makes a great noise, and looks very nice, and goes very fast. Yeah, definitely the Huayra.  

And here's a video of why I love it.....

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Apologies!

As you bumble about cyberspace and browse the internet, you might have noticed this site has been rather static over the past month or so. And with such significant automotive events happening within the past month or so - Paris motor show, and all the fantastic new metal that was unveiled, Mclaren P1, Jag F Type, the triangly facelifted Gallardo, and much more - it seems strange that a blog dedicated to car news and reviews, is less lifeless, and quite frankly, less interesting, than James May banging on about the inlet manifold on some god-awful fifty year old rust bucket.
So why is this the case you ask? Well, without sounding like a winging idiot, I shall try to explain. I am currently, in my final year of secondary school - year twelve - and I have been working my fingers, literally, to the bone, studying for my final exams which begin on the 1st of November. I also slightly caught hypothermia last night, after thinking it would be a good idea to move rapidly between a forty degree spa bath to freezing - probably the equivalent of antarctic - icey swimming pool water. But I'm not complaining.
In the past few weeks I've been up to many things which I will try to share with you in the coming weeks. For example, I spent some time working with the guys from TopGear Australia magazine, which was a bit cool. I've been driving my mx-5 lots, and its ruddy brilliant! I'll also be driving the BMW 135i for the very last time in a few weeks time because of the bloody P-Plate laws we have here in Australia, and all the usual car news will return.
In the mean time though, here are the two articles I wrote for the TopGear Australia website:
http://au.carbage.blogs.topgear.com/2012/09/27/video-why-you-shouldnt-wear-a-seatbelt/
http://au.carbage.blogs.topgear.com/2012/09/27/video-ford-focus-does-russian-acrobatics/
Enjoy!
Oh, before I forget! I now have a twitter account! So follow me @AidenT_RD I don't really understand how it works, but follow me anyway!