 Cars at Niagara Regional Airport. Click image to enlarge |
The drive route took us on a loop starting from the Niagara District Airport, crisscrossing various local roads with a brief blast up and down the QEW, which had a section of conveniently grooved asphalt to get a feel for the car’s noise, vibration, and harshness levels, plus its comfort. Of course, those factors aren’t heavily weighted in this category, but the form must be filled out. Our second pairing was the Accord V6 Coupe (also a bit of an oddity in this category) and Hyundai Veloster Turbo, both of which would serve well as daily drivers with a good dose of fun, but neither had much of an edge when pushed hard.
After a quick lunch, we saw that the keys to both the Subaru BRZ and Scion FR-S were available, and we were sick of compromised performance cars and wanted a taste of these focused sports cars, the product of a successful joint development program between Toyota and Subaru. Finally some true brilliance. It was also interesting to see that when driven back to back, and under the extreme conditions of an autocross course, it is evident that the FR-S has a slightly sharper and stiffer setup, and I actually found that I could drive faster with the softer BRZ setup—but if you like a back end that steps out early and often, well, the FR-S is your ticket. Both exceeded all my previous impressions because of the opportunity to drive the wheels off them on a closed course. If I could have just kept driving those two on that course, over and over again, I’d have been a happy man. Then again, in previous years the handling limits were tested on Shannonville race track, so I can understand some journalists disappointment in the short, quick course.
 Volkswagen Golf R (left) and Mini Cooper S coupe. Click image to enlarge |
Unfortunately, we had to keep the testing going, and our next pairing was the Ford Focus ST and Hyundai Genesis Coupe. The Genesis Coupe would have impressed me on any day that I didn’t drive the BRZ or FR-S, but I just drove them, so its impressive handling seemed just a little duller and the fun factor a degree lower. The Focus ST on the other hand, was a wild and unruly handful—a perfect choice for the recent Need for Speed Most Wanted commercial. The power just piles on one the turbo spools up, in an unruly torque-steering Gangnam style dance, with some of the quickest steering I felt the whole week. It also oversteered more than any FWD vehicle I’ve ever driven. A bit shocking, but not as much of a handful as its big, scary brother—the Shelby GT500 (more on that later).
The last pair of the day was something of an odd couple, the Mini Roadster S and VW Golf R, a personal favourite of mine and the only vehicle in the category with AWD. As ever, the Mini was a cat’s pyjamas and the bee’s knees all rolled into one when driving around town, but started to get a little too light and loose when pushed to its absolute limits. The Golf R delivered on our expectations, a refined ride in a practical package, and its AWD gave it the edge in outright speed and even helped it power out of corners in an authoritative manner. However, it was priced far above most of the other entries, and there is a significant weight on pricing in the final category calculations.
We finished our 10 cars with time to spare and I spent some extra time going over my scores—apparently pencils were a new adaptation this year and my eraser got some intense exercise before heading back to the hotel for the evening’s dinner plans.
