Table of contents for January 2020 in Automobile

I DON’T WEAR a watch, and I think I know why: a permanent injury. Not to me, but to my father’s wristwatch. The 5-year-old me accidentally pulverized it while pretending to be a Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter plane (as you did in the 1960s), flying with it attached to my wrist, arms outstretched, at an approximate scale speed of 340 mph. Entering the doorway leading to our kitchen, doubling as Burma that night, it transpired I’d made a tragic miscalculation of wingspan. So ended the life of my dad’s watch. My father was not unpissed about its demise, though he wasn’t too bad, given his proven V-Max anger ceiling. But I was so upset, I ran away from home. For 10 minutes, at least, as was my practice. I’ve mostly…

NO ROOF. NO DOORS. NO FUTURE? “Why not? These days, anything is possible,” says Klaus Bischoff, Volkswagen’s chief designer and mastermind behind the electrified, dune-slaying ID Buggy. “You see, the e-buggy concept fuses a politically correct electric drivetrain with a highly emotional body style, which evokes fond memories of surf, sun, and sand. To me, the buggy concept is as retro as it is modern and contemporary.” We’re puttering along in the Buggy on 17-Mile Drive, which skirts the shores of California’s Monterey Peninsula. This is the turf of billionaires, but on a hazy Friday morning during the annual Monterey Car Week festivities, our slow-moving greenback attracts more attention than the hordes of Porsches, Lamborghinis, and Ferraris rumbling by. Hand-built for the 2019 Geneva auto show, the concept has since…

Bentley Key Case $400,000+ (est) This holiday season, forget about generic model-car stocking stuffers, and pick up the new Bentley Mulsanne W.O. Edition commemorative box that’s chock-full of primo desk tchotchkes and assorted Bentley paraphernalia. Aside from a fancy metal paperweight and a 1:18-scale model of a 1930 Bentley 8-Litre Saloon, the gorgeous wood box comes with a set of real Bentley keys. That’s handy, considering the only way to get this box is to pony up for one of the 2019 Bentley Mulsanne W.O. Editions. Pacto Helmets from $880 For when your ball cap isn’t period correct, Pacto’s excellent vintage-styled helmets are picture perfect for the Mille Miglia or Goodwood Revival. These helmets come in a number of styles and colors, and each is constructed of era-appropriate materials and…

TURN ON, TUNE IN, and join us on a magical, not-so-mysterious tour of 1960s London. No, we’re not talking about visiting famous tourist sites like Buckingham Palace or the Tower of London. Instead, we’ll search out the special places that were at the forefront of swinging ’60s culture. And no, we won’t travel by open-top double-decker bus. Small is the answer for driving around London; it was in 1960, and it most certainly is in 2019. When you’re talking small, you’re talking Mini, of course. The special 1963 Austin Mini we have in our employ, owned by fellow automotive journalist Richard Bremner, is absolutely original—a one-owner car bought new by the lady whose name is on the car’s logbook ahead of Bremner’s. As I climb aboard, I’m surprised by the…

LOFOTEN, NORWAY— TAKE A POTENTIALLY mythical car, the Huracán Evo. Drive it in a mythical land, the Lofoten Islands of Norway. The result, on this dangling archipelago north of the Arctic Circle, becomes a commentary on perspective: Although we’re overwhelmed by Lofoten’s extreme beauty—who knew Norway could look like this?—the locals flip out over the orange Huracán in their midst, glowing like the sun that never sets here between mid-May and mid-July. No, the Huracán hasn’t lost its power to stun. Five years into the model’s fabulously successful run, the updated 631-hp Huracán Evo (up 29 horses from last year) becomes the base version of the supercar from Sant’Agata Bolognese. On the blazing heels of the record-setting Performante edition, the Lamborghini that took the fight to Ferrari and McLaren, the…

IF YOU’RE RUNNING an outfit like Barrett-Jackson, your best-case scenario is a no-reserve auction. The reason why is simple: Auction houses make most of their money on commission—the premium paid from both the seller and the buyer on the sales price. And without a reserve price to meet, every car to cross the block will be sold to the highest bidder, regardless of bid. In Las Vegas, Barrett-Jackson was able to consign all 677 vehicles it had in inventory without reserve, resulting in a 100 percent sell-through rate and some $33.3 million in vehicle sales. Here were some of our favorites at nearly every price point. 1 1999 Mercedes-Benz SL500 Roadster Sold: $13,750 There were several Mercedes SL convertibles that sold for less than this example, but it’s doubtful the…

ANDY PILGRIM, Automobile’s resident professional racer, hurtles the two of us around WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, the speedo climbing past 125 mph on the track’s main straight before he knifes the camouflaged prototype through the quick Turn 1 kink and brakes hard for the tight Turn 2 hairpin. Despite a damp track surface from a recent rain, as we exit the 180-degree left-hander, Pilgrim is quickly back on full throttle, and we gun hard toward Turn 3. The lap continues like this—we’re making some serious speed—but everything feels weird. For one thing, Pilgrim seems to be driving not a 10/10ths hot lap but instead a relaxed Sunday afternoon cruise; he barely moves the steering wheel as we dive down the tricky Corkscrew, the car tracking through the apex with zero countersteer…

I DROVE A lot of cars in 2019. Of course, saying that is no different than a waitress at Denny’s declaring: “I served up a lot of Grand Slams in 2019.” It’s my job. Fortunately for me, unlike endless plates of eggs and hotcakes, every car is not the same. But not all are grand slams. Here are five out of dozens that were. “The best luxury performance sedan on the market. Period.” That’s what I wrote about the 2019 Mercedes-AMG S 63 last spring. Nothing I’ve driven since has changed my mind. Yes, it’s expensive as hell (my test car rang in at almost $182,000). But this is a work of four-door engineering magnificence to which no other premium sedan I’ve ever driven compares. Speed? With a 603-horse twin-turbo…

OSLO, Norway— PORSCHE DOESN’T LIKE us comparing its new Taycan to Tesla’s Model S, but until there’s another serious contender in the full-size electric sedan space, it’s only natural. And despite looking a bit behind the Model S on paper, the Taycan does what every other Porsche does so well and what so few other carmakers manage: It feels special and drives like it, too. It’s not the most efficient electric car on the block, but it’s not designed to be. Enthusiasts have eagerly anticipated the Taycan and feared it as the harbinger of the end times: “An electric Porsche?! What is this world coming to?” But has the wait for the first entirely electron-driven Stuttgart sled been worth it? In a word, yes. In several more words, absolutely yes,…

IT’S BECOME ALMOST cliché to say, but I was one of thousands of kids in the 1980s with a poster of a Lamborghini Countach tacked to my bedroom wall. Not the one my friend had with a bikini-clad model draped across a white hood. Instead, it was a red Countach, parked almost haphazardly on a double-yellow apex turn sharp enough to necessitate four or five bright yellow and black arrow signs warning oncoming drivers of its treachery. When I’d get home from school, the Lamborghini was there waiting for me. I’d dream of flipping its door up, clambering in, and firing up that rip-snorting V-12. It stood out from the other posters that covered nearly every inch of my room. The Ferrari Testarossa was almost tame by comparison, and the…

OUR OWN CONTRIBUTING writer and professional racer Andy Pilgrim did much of the development driving for the Drako GTE prototype, and he came to know the car’s on-track dynamics better than anyone. “It’s amazing how well the front end sticks,” Pilgrim says. “I worked with the engineer to finesse the torque-vectoring system, and the final balance point we arrived at produced a very impressive, high-performance feel. Approaching corners, as soon as I was slowed enough and on my desired line, I would aggressively pick up some balance/maintenance throttle, the torque vectoring helping the front and rear stay in line while accelerating. By the end of the test, I could aggressively accelerate ridiculously early after the apex yet still hold my line. “Huge brakes are a requirement, as the car is…