Car & Driver Burnout Kings - GM the big winner!!

[tama z71]

http://www.caranddriver.com/features...out-kings.html



Cadillac XLR-V Under all those aggressive, creased body lines is a Corvette chassis married to a supercharged and intercooled 4.4-liter Northstar V-8 producing 443 horsepower to motivate the quickest Cadillac ever. That huge number connects with not-particularly-wide 255mm rear tires, making for rubber hazed more readily than a fat boy in boot camp. We suggest you torch the tires with the hardtop down.

Chevrolet Corvette With the wimpiest example making 400 horsepower, any Corvette has little trouble incinerating the inevitable Goodyears strapped to the back. Coupe, convertible, automatic, standard, Z06, base model, whatever — any Vette smokes meats better than a Texas BBQ.

Pontiac GTO Rental-car looks only encourage you to lay waste to the GTO’s rear tires as if Avis would be replacing them. The 400-hp Corvette-sourced LS2 turns tarmac into a cheese grater once you disable the traction control. Despite a published base price of $32K, a lukewarm reception by buyers means you can get a GTO for significantly less.

Cadillac DTS The only front-wheel-drive vehicle on this list is powered by a 291-hp Northstar V-8. This is sufficient to leave two smoldering piles of redistributed silica and carbon just aft of the DTS’s Grandpa-hauling rollers. One of our editors got pulled over doing just that, and the cop couldn’t help laughing. No ticket!

Pontiac Solstice GXP One of the cheapest paths here to destroying a perfectly good set of gummies is the turbocharged 260 horsepower found in the Pontiac Solstice GXP for about $25K. Burnouts might, in fact, be a required part of the ownership experience, necessary each time a neighbor asks if you borrowed your hairdresser’s car.

5 out of 10! Sweet!!

[Bornfromparents]

something the car mags can give gm an award for is performance

[give_it_all_]

lol, that's great! I would never have expected a DTS to be one there.

The other 5 cars:
Dodge Ram SRT10
Jaguar S-type R
Dodge Charger RT
Ford Mustang GT
Infiniti G35

[Bornfromparents]

this is not a green image so honda and toyota want no part of it.

[tgagneguam]

Pontiac GTO Rental-car looks only encourage you to lay waste to the GTO’s rear tires as if Avis would be replacing them. The 400-hp Corvette-sourced LS2 turns tarmac into a cheese grater once you disable the traction control. Despite a published base price of $32K, a lukewarm reception by buyers means you can get a GTO for significantly less.

I cannot help but wonder if, as a result of its $32K base price that's further discounted by presently low demand combined with an amazing powertrain and generally few copies being sold, the GTO might not be one of those cars coveted for its exclusivity among certain collectors in years to come? I believe even a well-kept Edsel can capture a strong price in certain circles these days. Granted, comparisons between Edsel and the present GTO aren't quite parallel, but you get the idea: what now seems out of favor may very well be in favor with time.

[SmallBlock]

Note the oh-so-Ann Arbor self loathing evident in the introduction of this piece:

Burnouts are as American as apple pie and obesity.

Then, the writer, Jared Holstein, goes on to offer this patronizing paragraph.

You may notice a disproportionate percentage of American iron in the list. ’Merican muscle has a long and proud tradition of doing better burnouts than vehicles born elsewhere — such is our love of reasonably priced, rear-wheel-drive vehicles with large-displacement, torquey engines.

Of course, loyal readers of this tired rag will be confused, as the C&D 10Best list (cars they supposedly love the most) is replete with pedestrian Toyotas and Hondas. Truly the objects of Car and Driver's undying affection.

Talking out of both sides of their mouths again. Few autojournalists are worth the paper their articles are printed on.

RIP AUTOJOURNALISM

[tama z71]

Originally Posted by SmallBlock

Note the oh-so-Ann Arbor self loathing evident in the introduction of this piece:



Then, the writer, Jared Holstein, goes on to offer this patronizing paragraph.



Of course, loyal readers of this tired rag will be confused, as the C&D 10Best list (cars they supposedly love the most) is replete with pedestrian Toyotas and Hondas. Truly the objects of Car and Driver's undying affection.

Talking out of both sides of their mouths again. Few autojournalists are worth the paper their articles are printed on.

RIP AUTOJOURNALISM

You know, there's media bias and theres fanboy criticism. Yours falls under the latter.

[big swede]

If your going to list the DTS then it's silly not to list the W-bodies because they have a lighter front-end and more power (LS3 vs Northstar).

[genjy]

O M G

Biased with a capital B ! Another worthless car rag !

I wonder how much GM paid C&D !

[SmallBlock]

Originally Posted by tama z71

You know, there's media bias and theres fanboy criticism. Yours falls under the latter.

Nope, sorry.

I criticize the media because I want them to improve their writing capabilities. I mean, why would you reward poor writing by continuing to read it. Car and Driver needs to improve, I'm just doing my little part to help them along.

Really, I want them to increase their readership, so by telling everyone else how poor their articles are (whether or not its based on any semblence of fact), I can hopefully make them produce better written articles.

Of course, whether they still have any readership left after numerous hatchet jobs loosely based on reality is another story altogether.

[big swede]

Originally Posted by tama z71

You know, there's media bias and theres fanboy criticism. Yours falls under the latter.

Yep!,
Most magazines are a lot more accurate than any fan of a particular brand will ever give them credit for. The problem is people have their feelings stuck out a mile so any minor negative thing that is said about "their" team is always noticed and when something negative is said about any other "team" it is glossed over.

You can read a 5 car test and go to the 4 forums of the losing cars and every time there are people screaming bias, so any screams of bias are laughed at by any car magazine because they realize there will always be people who are biased themselves but don't realize it.

The thing that most people don't seem to understand is they get to drive more cars in one year than most people will drive in their lifetime so things that never bother a brand loyalist because they haven't driven as many different cars will drive someone nuts who has just gotten done driving a different car whose manufacturer does certain aspects much better. This always comes across as bias and nitpicking to any fanboy.

[I-Love-Pontiac]

I like how there are two Pontiacs on there. It's nice to see that it's still somewhat seen as a performance brand.

Although I really hope they decide to bring back the GTO. Although this last one was as boring as the Davnci Code, it's still crucial to Pontiac's image. Aside from the two GXPs, Pontiac doesn't really have any cars that have particularly good performance.

[01cavalier]

The Caddy is sure the odd one out. Didn't think going up to the 291 HP engine would make that much difference. The 275 HP Northstar doesnt really spin wheels much.

[Tomko]

Just when I thought Car and Driver couldn't sink much lower - I read about this... Talk about adolescent behavior. I outgrew smokey burnouts once I started paying for my own tires. This kind of stuff makes C. Van Tune look like an intellectual.

Sure am glad that I let my subscription run out. Enough said.

[Ty_99]

Originally Posted by genjy

O M G

Biased with a capital B ! Another worthless car rag !

I wonder how much GM paid C&D !

Please tell me how this is Biased? What car does Toyota have that could go in there and smoke tires like an XLR-V, Vette, Solstice, GTO? (DTS is a bit questionable) Only part of there car line that are rwd right now are Lexus. Honda? maybe an S2000. I am a bit surprised that an AMG Benz or a BMW M car didn't make the list. Really I don't see how this would have been a biased article with the imports so in love with fwd.

And before u go into the drifting crap about how imports rule drifting, remember most of those imports that are awesome drift cars are either not available in NA or are non current models. And as Millen proved in the GTO, even Americans can compete in that.