2014 MotorTrend's Best Driver's Car

[Mook]

2014 Motor Trend's Best Driver's Car - Motor Trend All Pages



10th Place: Volkswagen Golf GTI
Saving the Best (Pocket Rocket) for Last

9th Place: Jaguar F-Type R Coupe
Like Carl Lewis in Stilettos

8th Place: BMW i8
BMW’s Carbon-Fiber Future Has Wings

7th Place: Subaru WRX STI
We Like Continual Improvement

6th Place: Ford Fiesta ST
Driver's Party Piece

5th Place: BMW M4
Monstrous Motor Meets Magnificent Manners

4th Place: Nissan GT-R Nismo
The Sharpest Knife in Nissan's Block

3rd Place: Porsche 911 Turbo S
The King is Dead Third

2nd Place: Alfa Romeo 4C
Best Track Car? Maybe. Best Driver's Car? Not Quite.

1st Place: Chevrolet Camaro Z/28
Zero to Hero

Yes, it's a Camaro and still hard to see out of, and, yes, more than one editor complained about keeping such a big, wide car between the lines, but these issues become easy to forgive at the first turn of a great road. The Camaro Z/28 is the revered, old-school formula for speed writ large: big motor, bigger brakes, manual transmission, and a chassis tuned to race without any digital help. Greater than the sum of its parts, though, the Z/28 is a car in which how hard you smile is directly correlated to how hard you're driving it, and for that, it's Motor Trend's 2014 Best Driver's Car.

Click to read more...

 

[Mook]

Chevy beating out Porsche AND BMW?

 

[MikeyLikesIt]

When you have a contest based on opinions..anything can happen.

 

[Mook]

Thanks Captain Obvious

 

[guspech750]

I question #6.

 

[Mook]

More on the Z -

Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 - 2:50.9

Please stop writing in to tell us that a $75,000 Camaro is as ridiculous as a solid-gold snowplow. Get this: In Turn One, the Z/28 matched the Porsche 918 by posting 1.16 g's, the highest grip we've ever recorded in that corner. Another unfunny fact, at least to Porschephiles: In the uphill esses, a Camaro topped the 918's average and exit speeds.

Upon entering the esses, the Z/28 is traveling at 113.6 mph, and its 505-hp 7.0-liter V-8 is turning 6600 rpm in fourth. Pinning the throttle in this section is an exercise in denying one's survival instinct, the one begging you to lift, at least a little. And that's exactly what you must do. But elsewhere, holding the fear pedal to the floor is necessary to discover the genius of the Z/28, which is that nothing scary happens. The curbing, the bumps, the speed, and the violent transitions don't affect the Camaro's trajectory one micrometer. It remains half-buried in the pavement even with the multistage stability-and-traction-control system, dubbed Performance Traction Management, switched off. Cresting the top of the hill at 118.5 mph is serious business-that speed is faster than any other car's in the history of Lightning Lap. Of course, what goes up must come down, and coming down involves a tricky off-camber left that falls over the hill. Imagine approaching a blind downhill Slip 'n Slide at 118.5 mph in a 3861-pound Transformer with poor outward visibility. Thinking about braking? Yeah; us, too. And what big brakes it has: 15.5 and 15.4 inch front and read, carbon-ceramic rotors. A glancing dab is all that's required to prepare the Z/28 for the fall. It's easy to slow down too much in this car. And on the front straight, it's possible to stay on the gas so long and brake so late that you'll think this adventure can only end with the up-close-and-personal knowledge that the tire wall is made up mostly of Goodyear Arrivas.

Read the sidewalls of the Z/28 and you'll discover that there's more tire on the front of this Chevy that any other production car, ever. Those 305/30ZR-19 Pirelli P Zero Trofeo R tires are fixed to 11-inch wide wheels that stand proud of the front fenders. In addition to providing steady grip lap after lap, the exotic Trofeo Rs are what allow the Z/28 to match the 918's Turn One grip. The Ferrari engineers sent to baby-sit the F12 suspected that the Camaro wore "funny" tires. But they're standard-issue Z/28 rubber and were instrumental in getting the Z/28 to within a tenth of a second of the F12's lap time. The Ferrari guys probably didn't consider that at all funny.

 

[Yaj Yak]

fuck the z/28's are ridiculously badass.

 

[Mook]

Actually, that quoted text is not from the article. No clue where its from

edit: ah, its from C&D Lightning Lap 2014

 

[Gav'sPurpleZ]

still can't afford it.... and the hellcat.....still can't afford it.

so, yeah.

continue

 

[Euro]

 

[nytebyte]

Wait... I thought American cars couldn't go 'round corners..

Nice job Camaro for sticking to those Germans and Italians.

 

[YoushallgoFo]

and people still think american cars can't turn.

 

[EmersonHart13]

 

[Bru]

What the fuck is this map of emotions shit. Emo ass MT.

 

[sickmint79]

those tires do seem a bit more magical than standard street sticky tires, like part r compound or something? nonetheless that camaro is pretty beastly. although i'd prefer 1000 less lbs, it would be fun to try out for some laps.

 

[HYPROPULSION_R]

those tires do seem a bit more magical than standard street sticky tires, like part r compound or something? nonetheless that camaro is pretty beastly. although i'd prefer 1000 less lbs, it would be fun to try out for some laps.

they are R comps.

 

[EmersonHart13]

those tires do seem a bit more magical than standard street sticky tires, like part r compound or something? nonetheless that camaro is pretty beastly. although i'd prefer 1000 less lbs, it would be fun to try out for some laps.

they are R comps.

On the Chevrolet Camaro, Do The Tires Make The Car? - Motor Trend

 

[sickmint79]

they are R comps.

but they are streetable right? aren't full on Rs a bad idea for the street? these seemed to be straddling somewhere in the middle.

 

[ChiLAX]

This is ridiculous, everyone knows the 2012 Mustang GT is the best drivers car of 2014.

 

[EmersonHart13]

but they are streetable right? aren't full on Rs a bad idea for the street? these seemed to be straddling somewhere in the middle.

http://www.camaroz28media.com/dld/c...ner_0/par/download_2/file.res/Pirelli Z28.pdf