Table of contents for February/March 2026 in Road & Track

Jake Naughton ORIGINALLY FROM WISCONSIN and now based in Mexico City, Naughton normally photographs travel and luxury lifestyle assignments. We sent him to shoot Matthew Katz’s huge and esoteric Caretakers Collection of cars in Santa Monica, California. “Not being a car guy was probably an advantage,” he says. “I could talk to Matt about the cars and what motivated him to buy them with-out thinking of what they were worth.” Naughton’s personal highlight? “The Luigi Colani concept cars. They were just crazy to look at, with aerodynamic angles and sharp edges and spaces. More like fighter jets than cars.” See for yourself on page 058. Lalita Chemello “It wasn’t the biggest crash in terms of number of cars, but with 28 of the 38 cars that were on the track,…

IN THE BEGINNING, giants roamed the earth. Thundering leviathans with names like Pierce-Arrow, Fageol, and Peerless doddered down early-20th-century thoroughfares on spindly wheels under power from gigantic engines that sometimes displaced a dozen liters or more. As automobiles integrated into the mainstream after the Brass Era—the ease and convenience granted by the electric starter, a Cadillac innovation, accelerating their popularity—most car buyers and automakers downsized. But not Cadillac, which has always made luxury synonymous with excess, particularly in the literal sense of size. When the Detroit luxury brand debuted its celebrated V-16 engine in 1930, it was in a car with a 148-inch wheelbase that would eventually grow to 154 inches. The former figure is almost 14 inches longer than the wheelbase of a present-day Chevy Suburban; the latter is…

Once again, Performance Car of the Year starts at the track, a return to Thunderhill Raceway Park. The confines of a circuit are a chance to safely explore a car’s limits, a frontier that is increasingly extreme. In this year’s lineup, we had five cars with more than 600 hp, including one with more than 1000. That qualifies as extreme. We time laps, but those numbers don’t factor into our subjective voting, except indirectly as a way to formulate our own performance-to-confidence equations. There is no such thing as a perfect lap, and these are not pure race cars. They are road cars first and foremost, but ones that might be occasionally tracked by owners. That’s the experience we came to Thunderhill to replicate, with me pushing each car as far…

FROM THE EDITOR Welcome to the 2026 Road & Track Performance Car of the Year. I am delighted to bring you the following work of a select team of pros at R&T. The coverage of this year’s PCOTY spread out over the next 28 pages is the result of nearly a year of planning, a week of long but glorious days, and a not inconsiderable amount of money. That said, before you flip furiously to the final page of this presentation to see what won, or head to roadandtrack.com to watch the Performance Car of the Year video and read the myriad other stories about these nine cars, I ask that you hear me out on a couple of provisos. Understand that PCOTY isn’t, and could never be, a test…

Opinions vary widely among the Road & Track crew. “Irish Spring?!” editor-at-large Matt Farah exclaimed when the subject of bath products arose. “That’s prison soap!” Naturally, a dozen drivers experiencing nine cars across Northern California produced thousands of nuanced evaluations. Plus occasionally funny jokes, many mostly friendly disses, and some nearly relevant asides. Yet, through that, consensus arose while over-looking Lake Sonoma from the R&T base camp. Tastes differ about hygiene, but the substance of what makes a great road car is communal. That unanimity includes a shared faith that the ampersand matters. If this were Track, it would be a simple thing to cut Performance Car of the Year down to a day of lapping and a couple of photos. The Porsche 911 GT3 was the only car at…

In this job I take a lot of great road trips in a lot of great cars, but I never got to drive the Porsche 918 Spyder in 2013 when it was new. Better late than never. When the 918 was in development, Porsche built a number of preproduction cars that received identi-fying names. In a stroke of luck, Meredith, a metallic dark-blue example that remains in the automaker’s private collection and resides at Porsche Cars North America’s headquarters in Atlanta, needed some exercise at the exact time I was asking to borrow a car for one of our Road & Track Experiences trips. (Come join us! We have four in 2026.) This event, the Blue Ridge 500, was an extra-large 592 miles of vehicular enjoyment. The route featured the…

JUNE 10-13, 2026 OREGON + WASHINGTON A FOUR-DAY RALLY THROUGH THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST Join us for the best driving experiences that the Pacific Northwest has to offer—on the road, on the track, and even off-road. Get your adrenaline pumping at Portland International Raceway’s 12-turn, 1.97-mile road course with track lapping, an autocross challenge, and high-speed ride-alongs. The tarmac runs out as we head to Dirtfish Rally School to flex our off-road chops in Dirtfish’s custom-built lineup of Subaru rally cars. Throughout the trip, rally through the region on a curated route led by Road & Track editors including Mount Rainier National Park and White Pass Scenic Byway. We’ll also unwind with relaxing stays at luxury hotels, savor delectable culinary experiences, and make pit stops at noteworthy automotive locales. Come along for…

THE PROBLEM WITH depicting very large or very small things is always one of scale. Sure, the plump 1911 Fiat S76 car depicted here looks big. But it’s not until you realize that each of the S76’s four cylinders has more capacity than an entire 427-cubic-inch Chevy big-block V-8 that the scale of this early speed-record car comes into focus. And when you see and hear that 28.4-liter inline-four run, with each power stroke individually recognizable and flame, spark, and smoke blasting from its two rectangular exhaust stubs, you will know why its nick-name is the Beast of Turin. Built in a time of giants, the Beast was conjured to take the speed record from the Blitzen Benz, with its puny 21.5-liter inline-four. Despite the Fiat’s 100 additional horsepower (for…

2025 AUDI RS3 Turbocharged five-cylinder engines carried Audi to far-off rallying glory, and the company has stuck with the offbeat formula for the RS3. Revisions that earned it a PCOTY invitation include a recalibrated torque-splitting rear differential for faster responses and more oversteer. Price as Tested $77,045 Engine turbocharged 2.5-liter inline-5 Output 394 hp @7000 rpm 369 lb-ft @2250 rpm Transmission 7-speed dual-clutch automatic Curb Weight 3559 lb 0–60 mph 3.2 sec 2025 BMW M5 Touring The current M5 sedan is a fine car, but it was always going to be the wagon version that got a PCOTY ticket. Who doesn’t love a 717-hp longroof? The PHEV powertrain brings plenty of urge but at the cost of a significant weight bump over earlier M5s. Price as Tested $145,775 Engine +…

Correlation does not imply causation. But our 2026 Performance Car of the Year, the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1, has some strong similarities to the Lamborghini Revuelto that won last year. Both are midengine, have four&-figure outputs, and were the most powerful contenders in the competition. Before you accuse us of having a type, or just worshipping power, consider some critical differences. The Lambo channeled its massive output through a high-tech all-wheel-drive system incorporating three electric motors and frontaxle torque vectoring. The ZR1 takes the simpler approach of sending the entire 1064-horse corral exclusively through the rear wheels. Then there’s the chasmic disparity in price. Last year’s Revuelto was optioned to a surreal $729,458. The ZR1 started at $178K. Even laden with nearly every extra-cost option, including carbon-fiber wheels and the Carbon…