Day 4
If you offered me a million dollars to tell you what order I drove cars in on Thursday of TestFest, I’d be no richer for it. For the life of me I can’t recall which cars I drove when, aside from the few clues in my photo stream on my iPhone.
 Ford Shelby GT500. Click image to enlarge |
Clearly, at some point I drove the 662-hp Shelby GT500, and I have the pictures to prove it, and the memory of fearing for my life and my ability to keep the car in one piece. No question that it was the scariest car at this event. At the merest whisper of throttle, in almost any gear, the back end will start to chase the front tires the long way around. Powering out of a corner on the handling course? No, thank you. That would simply be a recipe for cleaning cones, grass, and dirt out of the wheel wells, even on the wide runways of Niagara airport—this car takes more than 15 minutes and a couple laps to sort out its awesome power, immediate throttle response and ‘lively’ handling characteristics. However, it’s another of those cars that years from now, I’ll reminisce about driving. RIP Carroll Shelby.
Of course, after driving the king of Mustangs, I had to follow with the Camaro, of course… The Camaro ZL1 has no shortage of power either, and with a more sophisticated and independent suspension, it was much easier to handle it and roar around the course at respectable speeds. It is, surprisingly (or perhaps not), more refined than the Vette, and doubles as a comfortable cruising car. If you like American muscle (and built in Canada), this is the one you can drive every day (okay, maybe store it for winter, but still).
 Ford Shelby GT500. Click image to enlarge |
Knowing in advance that before departure on Friday, we were required to drive the winners in every category, Thursday afternoon was a game of “Guess the Winners”, driving the two or three cars in each category that you think had the best shot at winning the category. Turns out I didn’t do so well… as mentioned earlier, I thought it was between the Dart and the Sentra in the Small Car Under $21K, and I drove the Malibu 2.0T and Mercedes-Benz B 250 in the Family Car Over $30K, and the Acura RDX, Chevrolet Traverse, Infiniti JX, and Nissan Pathfinder in the SUV/CUV Over $35K. Although in that last category I only skipped the Santa Fe 2.0T because I’d driven it previously, although Mike had me convinced that the Pathfinder had it in the bag.
I did guess correctly in the Family Car Under $30K, driving only the four-cylinder Accord sedan. While I’m not quite sure I would personally pick it over the sportier Fusion 1.6, especially not the 1.6 with manual transmission (Note to self: Comparison Test if we can ever get our hands on an Accord I4 Sport with a manual transmission and Fusion 1.6 manual at the same time). Not surprisingly, the Accord beat the Fusion by just one point—and that point was largely attributable to price, the Fusion $3K pricier than the Accord. Still, in this segment it boils down to tastes, the roominess and comfort of the Accord versus the fresh styling and sporty dynamics of the Fusion.
 Porsche Boxster. Click image to enlarge |
To finish the day, I saved myself something special: the Porsche Boxster. (Why does it look like you just relieved yourself in that pool? –Ed.) Now, I’d already driven the Boxster S in Alabama and on Barber Motorsports track, so I was no stranger to its epic awesomeness, but even so, I’d gladly accept any chance to drive it. And if that in itself wasn’t good enough, the temperature reached 20 degrees Celsius, not a cloud in the sky, perfect top-down cruising weather, and all the puddles on the handling course had dried up, so perfect conditions to push it to its absolute limits. The new Boxster, 981 in Porsche-code-speak, is a stunning design, and I wasn’t shy about voting it the Best New Design in that standalone category. With elements borrowed from the Carrera GT, but pricing that doesn’t yet stretch to the unattainable or ridiculous (don’t get me wrong, if I won the lottery, the 911 is still my first purchase), and sublime handling, I may have stretched my time limit in the car on a side route to take some extra pictures, and perhaps an extra loop on the course. So sue me.
While the evening events weren’t relevant (trust me, you do not want to hear the details of our Annual General Meeting, and I cannot divulge any details of the Halloween party other than that Chris Chase and Peter Bleakney are freakin’ rock stars! (Don’t forget it. –Ed), Thursday night was AJAC’s Automotive Journalism Awards dinner, and we won! Paul Williams collected the Volvo Environmental Journalism award for his Feature: Hybrids at the Crossroads, and I collected the hardware for the Nissan Design and Layout Award for Best Print Publication on behalf our autoTRADER.ca Buyer’s Guide Production team, led by our Art Director Jeff Fox, to whom most of the credit should go. Mike Schlee, in his wisdom, made me swear I would not try to give a speech before heading up to accept the award—I may or may not have had a drink or two before dinner, and they were pretty slow to feed us with all the awards being presented. (Hey, we were taking shuttles!)
It was a great way to end the week (almost), and the talk at most tables was of which cars won each category, who got screwed, who guessed the most winners, and how many cars we still had to drive before filling out and submitting the final Car of the Year ballot.
