April 3, 2025 • 21 mins
Jon Summers is the Motoring Historian. He was a company car thrashing technology sales rep that turned into a fairly inept sports bike rider. On his show he gets together with various co-hosts to talk about new and old cars, driving, motorbikes, motor racing, motoring travel.
In this episode, Jon reviews three vehicles, he discusses the Fiat 500e, highlighting its small size, aggressive regenerative braking, and plasticky interior, questioning its value considering depreciation. Next, he delves into the Dodge Durango Hellcat, lauding its 707 horsepower engine but critiquing its high price and overall build quality compared to competitors like Lexus and Genesis. Finally, he briefly evaluates the Acura ZDX, noting its competent performance but ultimately finding it unmemorable. Throughout, Jon shares anecdotes about technology glitches and driving experiences.
====================- Accept - Restless and Wild
- Fiat 500E - Perfectly adequate car. Luddite struggles getting it into gear. Nice evolution of the previous model. J would recommend one, but used. Let someone else suffer the depreciation hit of a new EV!!!!
- Over enthusiastic driver aids, the Acura ZDX a “500hp mother hen”
- Fiat overhears J’s muttering, tries to help me
- Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction - Holy Gasoline
- Dodge Durango Hellcat vs. Genesis GV80. Durango Hellcat vs. Lexus GX550 AND Elantra N. That 707hp V8, J’s Best Piece Of Technology. Center tach, like a 911 or a Gixxer. Durango Hellcat vs. Ram SRT-10, and aero limited top speed. Stable at high speed. But the news is the organic power delivery. Is the price even relevant, is this already a collector car?
- Acura ZDX - Low wide station wagon shape instead of Rivian style tall upright SUVs
- Zodiac Mindwarp - Airline Highway
===== (Oo---x---oO) =====
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Jon Summers is the motoring historian.
He was a company car thrashingtechnology sales rep that turned into
a fairly inept sports bike rider.
Hailing from California, he collectscars and bikes built with plenty of
cheap and fast, and not much reliable.
On his show, he gets together withvarious co hosts to talk about new
and old cars, driving, motorbikes,motor racing, and motoring travel.
(00:37):
Good day, good morning, good afternoon.
It is John Summers, themotoring historian, part four.
Of the best of the bay driving days thatI did so a review of the Fiat 500e the
electric one the Dodge Durango Hellcatthe one with the 707 horsepower Hellcat
motor as you might expect from the nameand the Acura ZDX which that company
(01:03):
was kind of forgettable but yeah withoutfurther ado So it's applicable that I've
just taken a swig of my espresso becausethe next thing I drove was the Fiat 500e.
This is easily the smallest and, uh, youknow, least impressive of, uh, of the
stuff that we drove in terms of like, youknow, look at my swinging kind of thing.
But.
(01:23):
A perfectly adequate product.
Plasticky on the inside, butI mean, who cares, right?
This is an economy car.
I actually like thesimplicity of the design.
As I say, I struggled to, as I was sayingin another part of the presentation here,
I struggled to find out how to make it go.
You know, I was in, I foundthe start button, then I was
like, how do I put it into gear?
And they've moved the buttons onto thecenter console, like where normally the
(01:47):
heater controls or the radio would be backin a car in the, from the 20th century.
But you know, obviously once somebody,it's like cut and paste, once they've
showed you how to do it, once youknow how to drag and drop a paragraph
around in Word, you're like, Oh, youknow, my life has changed forever.
It's that feeling, you know, once youknow how to do it, it's easy, right?
And it becomes hard to believethat you were ever numpty enough
(02:08):
not to know how to pop it in gear.
First thing I wrote down about it wasthat it has a very aggressive regenerative
breaking and you can modulate that.
But it's clear that there's less thoughtgone into the design of how the one pedal
driving experience is far less than, youknow, Hyundai spent on the Ioniq or Lucid
(02:30):
did, and really the comparison betweenthe Fiat 500 and the Lucid, it shows just
in the, you know, with practice, you candrive the Fiat smoothly, but it does Take
a little bit of practice and it's a littlebit herky jerky more as Citroen used to
be than you're the way my mum used tobe trying to drive a car with a clutch.
Forgive me, mum, but very jumpyin that white Fiesta that we had.
(02:55):
So 500 was a facelift, right?
So it's got like strakes across thelights and things on the face of it.
You might look at it and belike, is that even a new model?
The answer is yes, it is.
The more you look, more you'llsee how is the new model stylish?
Actually, when you look closelystylish evolution of the, of the
design, it's got a big ev wine,like a real, like, hi, I'm electric.
(03:17):
You know, like that milk flow sound.
For those of us who grew up insuburban England in the late 20th
century, the wine of the milkflow is, is there, I'm not a fan.
I mean, I never was gonna be a fan of thiskind of car and I don't like as, as I've.
I think I've said elsewhere inthe presentation, I don't like
the fact that Fiat 500s alwayshave this sit up and beg position.
(03:39):
Did I like it?
No.
Was it a good car?
Yes.
Is it the right solution for many people?
Yes.
Although I just wonder, you know, wouldyou buy it new and eat the depreciation?
You know, I'd probably try and find some.
Secondhand EV where some othertree hugging schmuck had eaten
the depreciation pill earlier.
(04:00):
I wrote here, tire roar noticeable.
It's fine around town.
Screen and air conditioningare easy to use.
Oh, there's an amusingthing that happened.
A couple of times, a couple of thecars, the technology sort of tripped up.
So the Honda, it like wanted to breakcause it saw the car in front breaking.
(04:21):
So it was like, ah, emergency,like car in front, it's stopping.
Like, ah, you got a break.
And I'm like, dude, I'm like 50feet away from the car in front.
Like cool your boots.
And it settled down once the carhad like turned off, but I'd never
had that before where the car hadbeen like, Oh, we're going to crash.
Like, cause like the gauge flashed red.
I don't know what kind of car has500 horsepower and isn't, and is
(04:43):
like a old mother hen like that.
It's really bizarre.
Sorry, Acura.
Jake, the, the rep from Acura, reallynice guy, but the product is, it's
not that the product is off the pace.
Because it isn't, right?
Because that, on the prologue,that low wide stance, really cool.
But there was, I don't know, I mean,the car had only done 100 miles.
(05:07):
The Acura ZDX that didthis like flash for me.
So I don't know, you know, maybethose kind of warning systems
were still tuning themselves in.
But that was the most seriousincident where, You know, where the
technology got in my way and was like,
you know, when, and you're like, dude,just settle the fuck down and act like
(05:29):
you were a 1980 CRX, the Fiat 500.
It's one was the AI.
They're like the voicelistening their voice.
Sensing thing must have beenworking because at one point
I was talking to myself.
I don't know what I said, butI said something out loud and
the car was like, what was that?
Can I help you?
Pardon?
(05:50):
And all this kind of cars trying tostart a damn conversation with me.
And all I'd done was like mutterabout somebody moving into my lane.
It was like I'd done like afucking L or something like that.
I just had one of thosein the car was like, what?
Like, can I help you?
Sir, you know, would youlike a paper hat with that?
And I'm just like, out ofmy face, dumb technology.
Oh, I also triggered the emergency break.
(06:13):
That's the other thing.
It was for a second triggered theemergency breaking on the fear.
The Acura that I just talked about, thatwas a, that was a separate incident.
Now, I think of it, thosewere the three things.
So I guess whilst I like the fear,that technology feels like it's not
quite tuned in properly yet, evenfor the kind of people who like it.
(06:34):
And I obviously.
Hate that kind of technology.
I quite like this little Fiat, despiteit, even despite it asking me, you
know, over waiting on me and, uh,the emergency braking going off.
Cause it said I was too closeto the traffic in front.
It's like, who's driving meor you car, but I'm driving.
(07:05):
So from the sublime to the ridiculous,cause it went from the Fiat 500.
To the Dodge Durango Hellcat.
(07:25):
I think it was somesilver bullet last call.
Get a gas guzzling V8 while youcan kind of special edition.
Silver matte black hoodreally looked good.
This is a three row SUV with a707 horsepower supercharged V8.
(07:48):
Nice bull's blood leather.
Interior in it that actually was kindof nicer than the rest of the interior.
There was that sort of a mismatchand I sat in it and I'd driven
it before I looked at the price.
And were it the same price as the Genesisand the Lexus, you might allow your heart
and that epic engine to win you over.
(08:11):
But, hand on heart, even died in the warconfirmed gearhead like me, were it my
money, for the same money, I'd take theGenesis GV Coupe over the Hellcat Durango.
That's if they were the same money,but the GVs, they were 70 to 80ish.
(08:33):
This Hellcat.
It was 115.
113. One was 115, one was 113.
It was the range and the Durangowere the two most expensive.
I'm here to tell you, theDurango felt overpriced.
It felt like a, you taking thepiss because this is not in the
same, the bill quality was noteven like close to the Lexus.
(08:57):
And the Lexus is like 30 grand less.
Like you literally, you could have had theLexus and the Lan Elantra n. Instead of
the Hellcat, but that's missing the point.
Isn't it?
The last best of the bay.
I wasn't able to make it because I wasn'table to go for the whole time, but their
best car was, you know, the best debatethey picked was a stick shift Acura.
(09:17):
And, you know, Michaeldid joke at one point.
What were you going to do ifthe Hellcat one kind of thing?
And You know, I'm a sufficient Ludditethat I steeled myself to make a good
judgment and not allow myself to beblinded by that epic engine because I knew
the engine was going to be impressive.
And it was right.
It is an awesome thing.
(09:39):
You know, one of the awards that we hadto give was the best piece of technology.
And honestly, without a traceof facetiousness, the best piece
of technology we experiencedthere wasn't the Lucids.
Regen breaking, which I'll talk moreabout later on, but that really is,
that's an awesome feat of engineering.
(10:00):
I mean, that is an awesome feat ofengineering, but it is not in the
same league as 707 Horsepower ofsupercharged V8 let loose on the highway,
that is just a thing unto itself.
So you're never allowed to forgetabout the engine in sport mode.
(10:21):
It's incredibly loud in normal mode.
It's bloody loud.
You know, you don't ever forgetthese cars about the engine.
It's like a Porsche 911 or aSuzuki tach is right in the middle
and the speedo and all the otherstuff is just off to the side.
It's got all these trackmodes and launch modes.
(10:42):
I didn't play around withwith any of that stuff.
I just got out on the highwayand pressed the loud pedal.
You know, for a while I lookedat those Ram SRT10 pickup trucks.
That is a Ram pickup truckwith a Dodge Viper 8 litre
normally aspirated V10 in it.
(11:03):
In concept, it's pretty cool.
They don't, they can't tow thatmuch, but you can tow a car in them.
The gas mileage is bad,but what would you expect?
They're expensive to maintain, but youknow, what would you expect kind of thing?
But really what put me off is that for atruck you want torque, and this is a race
motor that makes all its power high up.
So really, you know, peopleburnouts and then sell them.
(11:25):
A lot of them have very, uh, havea very high number of, of owners.
So as I sort of.
Passed out that I didn'treally want this SRT 10 truck.
One of the things that always stuck inmy mind about them was that that motor
in the Viper makes it like a 200 milean hour car, 190, 200 mile an hour car.
The truck can do 140.
(11:49):
Arrow limited, and I would never havethought that, you know, I'd have thought
500 horsepower was 500 horsepower.
If, if an E type with 270 horsepower canknock on the door of 150 miles an hour,
if my a MG Mercedes de restricted whennew, you know, a 2000 and, you know, W2
10 E 55, supposedly called to Wikipediade restricted, can do 175 miles an
(12:14):
hour, 350 horseback Ferrari, Daytona.
350 horsepower AMG Benz.
This is mid 170s, isn't it?
So it seems to me, I thought, you know,500 horsepower would inevitably mean
that you were looking at more than that.
But the error effect is significantin the case of those rams.
The same is the case with withthis Durango, and I was surprised
(12:39):
by how error limited it was.
It was pretty stable high speed.
It certainly was fun.
Um, it certainly is.
more fun.
There is a difference in the organic powerdelivery of a gasoline or diesel powered
(13:00):
vehicle versus the electric whoosh of Ofan ev right there, there is a difference.
So it's not about the amount ofhorsepower, it's the way that
the power is, is delivered.
And that contrast was actuallymost noticeable between the Ionic
five N and the Elantra N. It's the,just the way the power comes in.
(13:22):
And the Elantra just left me feelinglike an old pair of slippers, whereas
the Ionic five left me feelinglike was I, I feel like halfway
between a PlayStation and real life.
The Durango is definitelyon the real life section.
It's an absolute beast.
I wonder if the price is even relevantbecause this is a future classic.
(13:43):
Like, you can't get thatV8 anymore after this year.
You can't get it in a sedanor coupe wrapper even now.
You know, it's, it's over.
And yes, this new inline six thatthey do, they're going to turbo
charge for more power soon enough.
But this, this Hellcat isthe last of the American V8s.
(14:05):
And if you look at that.
In that context, it's not the lastis the Ford Mustang will be, but if
you look at it in, in that context,it seems a bit silly to wrap it in
a three row SUV body, to be honest.
Like, I feel like, you know, ifyou want a Hellcat buy a 50 grand
Challenger and a 50 grand Hemi Durango.
(14:26):
You know, when, and yeah,to say I was underwhelmed is
completely the wrong thing.
I wasn't underwhelmed.
Like I loved it.
Like I, I drove further than I drove.
Any of the other cars drove beyondthe end of the designated test route.
And I still didn't want to turn around.
And I drove up a little lane and thesurface was rough and it was twisty.
(14:46):
And I, you know, I wanted to fling itdown there and see how it rode the bumps.
See if I could try and make a casefor a 700 horsepower, three row SUV.
And I got out and, you know, walkaround it and took pictures and,
and was, was smitten with it.
But not only was it not thebest, it just wasn't the most
(15:08):
charismatic, just complete package.
It was, uh, rather like.
Reminded me a lot of that SRT 10RAM that the engine was epic and
the idea of pickup truck was epic.
But you know, you don't want mustard onice cream and, and that was how I felt.
You know, the mustard belongson the roast beef and the
chocolate sauce on the ice cream.
(15:30):
And you know, that engine in the GV80.
Oh, now I see why peoplelove Hellcat Chargers.
Why the Chargers was so popular,even alongside the Challengers.
So I wrote down that it had a Harmoncard stereo, which you'd expect
for the price point, wouldn't you?
The lovely smell, our canarasteering wheel, so it felt sporty.
(15:50):
It had a fan seat, so like you couldhave the, like, the cool air blowing
up your ass crack, and the, ourcanara steering wheel being heated
and that was, was pretty cool.
I wrote noisy and guttural, evenin normal mode, let alone sport.
The modes were really easy to use.
And it was easy to sort of bespoke up thesuspension and you could do that on the
(16:14):
fly, you know, so that felt really usable.
There is a noticeable superchargerwhine and it is a million times
cooler than that irritating EV whine.
Like here comes the milk float that a lotof them, that a couple of the cars had.
Yeah, I just wrote themotor is always there.
(16:44):
So the Acura ZDX.
So this is maybe more familiar toa lot of you as the Honda Prologue.
I know somebody in the school pickupline is one of these Honda Prologues
and, and where a lot of SUVs are goingdown the sort of narrow, tall, kind
of design, you know, more like Rivian,uh, more like the Land Rover Discovery
(17:06):
and the Lexus is an example of that.
The Prologue's of that in that it'swider and lower, so it actually
appears more like a sort of squareor wider station wagon, traditional
American station wagon or a state car,than it does seem like, uh, an SUV.
I didn't poke aroundin the trunk properly.
(17:27):
I'd got back ended on the, the timesand it was the last car of, of the day.
And I've got to say, I was feeling tired.
So did I give it a fair crack of the whip?
I certainly tried.
As I mentioned earlier, it, it gotupset with me because it said I was
following another car too closelyand, and tried to do the, uh,
the emergency, uh, braking on me.
(17:47):
At 544 horsepower, apparently,so, you know, the thing had
plenty of, uh, of, of giddy up.
It didn't feel that fast.
I didn't toggle with the modes very much.
And sadly, at the end of the day, itdidn't make that much of an impression.
I did go back to look at it againafterwards, but I actually was
(18:08):
distracted by the Lexus, and Iwent back and looked at the Lexus.
I set out from, you know, at the end ofthe day, when I was looking at stuff right
at the end, about before I did my voting,I set out to look at it again to try and
form more of an opinion about it and, uh,ended up sitting in the Lexus again and
thinking, Oh, that's really nice quality.
(18:29):
So, you know, maybe within this, right,there's a metaphor for the challenge
that Acura have at the moment, whichis that was this a bad product?
Absolutely not.
But was it in any way memorablein comparison to the other
things that I experienced?
No, no, it really wasn't.
You know, is it betterobjectively than the Hellcat?
Of course.
Slight.
(18:50):
By a country mile, but what the Hellcathad, and in fact, what the Genesis
has in spades, the sort of designswagger, just the coolness, just, uh,
I'm paying 700 pounds, 700 a month forthe next five years, but it's cars.
Bloody cool.
I'm not sure if you'd feellike that about the ZDX.
You know, I can't rememberwhat the interior looked like.
(19:12):
As I said, I was tired.
Right.
A lot of this, this might bemore about me than about the car.
And certainly I did lean onit before I'm driving wise.
And you know, it just as all EVstend to do, it just like did it all.
It didn't like fall apartat really high speeds.
It just like did it all.
I should say as well, the Fiat.
Enough speed for anynormal bear, normal time.
(19:35):
You know, I explored,uh, I explored that much.
So for the Acura, I wrote thetoggling for mode's not perfect.
Awesome ride, great ride, andit feels planted on the road.
So sorry, Acura, that I haven'tgiven you as fair a crack there.
I should have really driven that caragain afterwards, so sorry about that.
(20:11):
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(20:34):
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Jon Summers is the motoring historian.
He was a company car thrashingtechnology sales rep that turned into
a fairly inept sports bike rider.
Hailing from California, he collectscars and bikes built with plenty of
cheap and fast, and not much reliable.
On his show, he gets together withvarious co hosts to talk about new
and old cars, driving, motorbikes,motor racing, and motoring travel.
(00:37):
Good day, good morning, good afternoon.
It is John Summers, themotoring historian, part four.
Of the best of the bay driving days thatI did so a review of the Fiat 500e the
electric one the Dodge Durango Hellcatthe one with the 707 horsepower Hellcat
motor as you might expect from the nameand the Acura ZDX which that company
(01:03):
was kind of forgettable but yeah withoutfurther ado So it's applicable that I've
just taken a swig of my espresso becausethe next thing I drove was the Fiat 500e.
This is easily the smallest and, uh, youknow, least impressive of, uh, of the
stuff that we drove in terms of like, youknow, look at my swinging kind of thing.
But.
(01:23):
A perfectly adequate product.
Plasticky on the inside, butI mean, who cares, right?
This is an economy car.
I actually like thesimplicity of the design.
As I say, I struggled to, as I was sayingin another part of the presentation here,
I struggled to find out how to make it go.
You know, I was in, I foundthe start button, then I was
like, how do I put it into gear?
And they've moved the buttons onto thecenter console, like where normally the
(01:47):
heater controls or the radio would be backin a car in the, from the 20th century.
But you know, obviously once somebody,it's like cut and paste, once they've
showed you how to do it, once youknow how to drag and drop a paragraph
around in Word, you're like, Oh, youknow, my life has changed forever.
It's that feeling, you know, once youknow how to do it, it's easy, right?
And it becomes hard to believethat you were ever numpty enough
(02:08):
not to know how to pop it in gear.
First thing I wrote down about it wasthat it has a very aggressive regenerative
breaking and you can modulate that.
But it's clear that there's less thoughtgone into the design of how the one pedal
driving experience is far less than, youknow, Hyundai spent on the Ioniq or Lucid
(02:30):
did, and really the comparison betweenthe Fiat 500 and the Lucid, it shows just
in the, you know, with practice, you candrive the Fiat smoothly, but it does Take
a little bit of practice and it's a littlebit herky jerky more as Citroen used to
be than you're the way my mum used tobe trying to drive a car with a clutch.
Forgive me, mum, but very jumpyin that white Fiesta that we had.
(02:55):
So 500 was a facelift, right?
So it's got like strakes across thelights and things on the face of it.
You might look at it and belike, is that even a new model?
The answer is yes, it is.
The more you look, more you'llsee how is the new model stylish?
Actually, when you look closelystylish evolution of the, of the
design, it's got a big ev wine,like a real, like, hi, I'm electric.
(03:17):
You know, like that milk flow sound.
For those of us who grew up insuburban England in the late 20th
century, the wine of the milkflow is, is there, I'm not a fan.
I mean, I never was gonna be a fan of thiskind of car and I don't like as, as I've.
I think I've said elsewhere inthe presentation, I don't like
the fact that Fiat 500s alwayshave this sit up and beg position.
(03:39):
Did I like it?
No.
Was it a good car?
Yes.
Is it the right solution for many people?
Yes.
Although I just wonder, you know, wouldyou buy it new and eat the depreciation?
You know, I'd probably try and find some.
Secondhand EV where some othertree hugging schmuck had eaten
the depreciation pill earlier.
(04:00):
I wrote here, tire roar noticeable.
It's fine around town.
Screen and air conditioningare easy to use.
Oh, there's an amusingthing that happened.
A couple of times, a couple of thecars, the technology sort of tripped up.
So the Honda, it like wanted to breakcause it saw the car in front breaking.
(04:21):
So it was like, ah, emergency,like car in front, it's stopping.
Like, ah, you got a break.
And I'm like, dude, I'm like 50feet away from the car in front.
Like cool your boots.
And it settled down once the carhad like turned off, but I'd never
had that before where the car hadbeen like, Oh, we're going to crash.
Like, cause like the gauge flashed red.
I don't know what kind of car has500 horsepower and isn't, and is
(04:43):
like a old mother hen like that.
It's really bizarre.
Sorry, Acura.
Jake, the, the rep from Acura, reallynice guy, but the product is, it's
not that the product is off the pace.
Because it isn't, right?
Because that, on the prologue,that low wide stance, really cool.
But there was, I don't know, I mean,the car had only done 100 miles.
(05:07):
The Acura ZDX that didthis like flash for me.
So I don't know, you know, maybethose kind of warning systems
were still tuning themselves in.
But that was the most seriousincident where, You know, where the
technology got in my way and was like,
you know, when, and you're like, dude,just settle the fuck down and act like
(05:29):
you were a 1980 CRX, the Fiat 500.
It's one was the AI.
They're like the voicelistening their voice.
Sensing thing must have beenworking because at one point
I was talking to myself.
I don't know what I said, butI said something out loud and
the car was like, what was that?
Can I help you?
Pardon?
(05:50):
And all this kind of cars trying tostart a damn conversation with me.
And all I'd done was like mutterabout somebody moving into my lane.
It was like I'd done like afucking L or something like that.
I just had one of thosein the car was like, what?
Like, can I help you?
Sir, you know, would youlike a paper hat with that?
And I'm just like, out ofmy face, dumb technology.
Oh, I also triggered the emergency break.
(06:13):
That's the other thing.
It was for a second triggered theemergency breaking on the fear.
The Acura that I just talked about, thatwas a, that was a separate incident.
Now, I think of it, thosewere the three things.
So I guess whilst I like the fear,that technology feels like it's not
quite tuned in properly yet, evenfor the kind of people who like it.
(06:34):
And I obviously.
Hate that kind of technology.
I quite like this little Fiat, despiteit, even despite it asking me, you
know, over waiting on me and, uh,the emergency braking going off.
Cause it said I was too closeto the traffic in front.
It's like, who's driving meor you car, but I'm driving.
(07:05):
So from the sublime to the ridiculous,cause it went from the Fiat 500.
To the Dodge Durango Hellcat.
(07:25):
I think it was somesilver bullet last call.
Get a gas guzzling V8 while youcan kind of special edition.
Silver matte black hoodreally looked good.
This is a three row SUV with a707 horsepower supercharged V8.
(07:48):
Nice bull's blood leather.
Interior in it that actually was kindof nicer than the rest of the interior.
There was that sort of a mismatchand I sat in it and I'd driven
it before I looked at the price.
And were it the same price as the Genesisand the Lexus, you might allow your heart
and that epic engine to win you over.
(08:11):
But, hand on heart, even died in the warconfirmed gearhead like me, were it my
money, for the same money, I'd take theGenesis GV Coupe over the Hellcat Durango.
That's if they were the same money,but the GVs, they were 70 to 80ish.
(08:33):
This Hellcat.
It was 115.
113. One was 115, one was 113.
It was the range and the Durangowere the two most expensive.
I'm here to tell you, theDurango felt overpriced.
It felt like a, you taking thepiss because this is not in the
same, the bill quality was noteven like close to the Lexus.
(08:57):
And the Lexus is like 30 grand less.
Like you literally, you could have had theLexus and the Lan Elantra n. Instead of
the Hellcat, but that's missing the point.
Isn't it?
The last best of the bay.
I wasn't able to make it because I wasn'table to go for the whole time, but their
best car was, you know, the best debatethey picked was a stick shift Acura.
(09:17):
And, you know, Michaeldid joke at one point.
What were you going to do ifthe Hellcat one kind of thing?
And You know, I'm a sufficient Ludditethat I steeled myself to make a good
judgment and not allow myself to beblinded by that epic engine because I knew
the engine was going to be impressive.
And it was right.
It is an awesome thing.
(09:39):
You know, one of the awards that we hadto give was the best piece of technology.
And honestly, without a traceof facetiousness, the best piece
of technology we experiencedthere wasn't the Lucids.
Regen breaking, which I'll talk moreabout later on, but that really is,
that's an awesome feat of engineering.
(10:00):
I mean, that is an awesome feat ofengineering, but it is not in the
same league as 707 Horsepower ofsupercharged V8 let loose on the highway,
that is just a thing unto itself.
So you're never allowed to forgetabout the engine in sport mode.
(10:21):
It's incredibly loud in normal mode.
It's bloody loud.
You know, you don't ever forgetthese cars about the engine.
It's like a Porsche 911 or aSuzuki tach is right in the middle
and the speedo and all the otherstuff is just off to the side.
It's got all these trackmodes and launch modes.
(10:42):
I didn't play around withwith any of that stuff.
I just got out on the highwayand pressed the loud pedal.
You know, for a while I lookedat those Ram SRT10 pickup trucks.
That is a Ram pickup truckwith a Dodge Viper 8 litre
normally aspirated V10 in it.
(11:03):
In concept, it's pretty cool.
They don't, they can't tow thatmuch, but you can tow a car in them.
The gas mileage is bad,but what would you expect?
They're expensive to maintain, but youknow, what would you expect kind of thing?
But really what put me off is that for atruck you want torque, and this is a race
motor that makes all its power high up.
So really, you know, peopleburnouts and then sell them.
(11:25):
A lot of them have very, uh, havea very high number of, of owners.
So as I sort of.
Passed out that I didn'treally want this SRT 10 truck.
One of the things that always stuck inmy mind about them was that that motor
in the Viper makes it like a 200 milean hour car, 190, 200 mile an hour car.
The truck can do 140.
(11:49):
Arrow limited, and I would never havethought that, you know, I'd have thought
500 horsepower was 500 horsepower.
If, if an E type with 270 horsepower canknock on the door of 150 miles an hour,
if my a MG Mercedes de restricted whennew, you know, a 2000 and, you know, W2
10 E 55, supposedly called to Wikipediade restricted, can do 175 miles an
(12:14):
hour, 350 horseback Ferrari, Daytona.
350 horsepower AMG Benz.
This is mid 170s, isn't it?
So it seems to me, I thought, you know,500 horsepower would inevitably mean
that you were looking at more than that.
But the error effect is significantin the case of those rams.
The same is the case with withthis Durango, and I was surprised
(12:39):
by how error limited it was.
It was pretty stable high speed.
It certainly was fun.
Um, it certainly is.
more fun.
There is a difference in the organic powerdelivery of a gasoline or diesel powered
(13:00):
vehicle versus the electric whoosh of Ofan ev right there, there is a difference.
So it's not about the amount ofhorsepower, it's the way that
the power is, is delivered.
And that contrast was actuallymost noticeable between the Ionic
five N and the Elantra N. It's the,just the way the power comes in.
(13:22):
And the Elantra just left me feelinglike an old pair of slippers, whereas
the Ionic five left me feelinglike was I, I feel like halfway
between a PlayStation and real life.
The Durango is definitelyon the real life section.
It's an absolute beast.
I wonder if the price is even relevantbecause this is a future classic.
(13:43):
Like, you can't get thatV8 anymore after this year.
You can't get it in a sedanor coupe wrapper even now.
You know, it's, it's over.
And yes, this new inline six thatthey do, they're going to turbo
charge for more power soon enough.
But this, this Hellcat isthe last of the American V8s.
(14:05):
And if you look at that.
In that context, it's not the lastis the Ford Mustang will be, but if
you look at it in, in that context,it seems a bit silly to wrap it in
a three row SUV body, to be honest.
Like, I feel like, you know, ifyou want a Hellcat buy a 50 grand
Challenger and a 50 grand Hemi Durango.
(14:26):
You know, when, and yeah,to say I was underwhelmed is
completely the wrong thing.
I wasn't underwhelmed.
Like I loved it.
Like I, I drove further than I drove.
Any of the other cars drove beyondthe end of the designated test route.
And I still didn't want to turn around.
And I drove up a little lane and thesurface was rough and it was twisty.
(14:46):
And I, you know, I wanted to fling itdown there and see how it rode the bumps.
See if I could try and make a casefor a 700 horsepower, three row SUV.
And I got out and, you know, walkaround it and took pictures and,
and was, was smitten with it.
But not only was it not thebest, it just wasn't the most
(15:08):
charismatic, just complete package.
It was, uh, rather like.
Reminded me a lot of that SRT 10RAM that the engine was epic and
the idea of pickup truck was epic.
But you know, you don't want mustard onice cream and, and that was how I felt.
You know, the mustard belongson the roast beef and the
chocolate sauce on the ice cream.
(15:30):
And you know, that engine in the GV80.
Oh, now I see why peoplelove Hellcat Chargers.
Why the Chargers was so popular,even alongside the Challengers.
So I wrote down that it had a Harmoncard stereo, which you'd expect
for the price point, wouldn't you?
The lovely smell, our canarasteering wheel, so it felt sporty.
(15:50):
It had a fan seat, so like you couldhave the, like, the cool air blowing
up your ass crack, and the, ourcanara steering wheel being heated
and that was, was pretty cool.
I wrote noisy and guttural, evenin normal mode, let alone sport.
The modes were really easy to use.
And it was easy to sort of bespoke up thesuspension and you could do that on the
(16:14):
fly, you know, so that felt really usable.
There is a noticeable superchargerwhine and it is a million times
cooler than that irritating EV whine.
Like here comes the milk float that a lotof them, that a couple of the cars had.
Yeah, I just wrote themotor is always there.
(16:44):
So the Acura ZDX.
So this is maybe more familiar toa lot of you as the Honda Prologue.
I know somebody in the school pickupline is one of these Honda Prologues
and, and where a lot of SUVs are goingdown the sort of narrow, tall, kind
of design, you know, more like Rivian,uh, more like the Land Rover Discovery
(17:06):
and the Lexus is an example of that.
The Prologue's of that in that it'swider and lower, so it actually
appears more like a sort of squareor wider station wagon, traditional
American station wagon or a state car,than it does seem like, uh, an SUV.
I didn't poke aroundin the trunk properly.
(17:27):
I'd got back ended on the, the timesand it was the last car of, of the day.
And I've got to say, I was feeling tired.
So did I give it a fair crack of the whip?
I certainly tried.
As I mentioned earlier, it, it gotupset with me because it said I was
following another car too closelyand, and tried to do the, uh,
the emergency, uh, braking on me.
(17:47):
At 544 horsepower, apparently,so, you know, the thing had
plenty of, uh, of, of giddy up.
It didn't feel that fast.
I didn't toggle with the modes very much.
And sadly, at the end of the day, itdidn't make that much of an impression.
I did go back to look at it againafterwards, but I actually was
(18:08):
distracted by the Lexus, and Iwent back and looked at the Lexus.
I set out from, you know, at the end ofthe day, when I was looking at stuff right
at the end, about before I did my voting,I set out to look at it again to try and
form more of an opinion about it and, uh,ended up sitting in the Lexus again and
thinking, Oh, that's really nice quality.
(18:29):
So, you know, maybe within this, right,there's a metaphor for the challenge
that Acura have at the moment, whichis that was this a bad product?
Absolutely not.
But was it in any way memorablein comparison to the other
things that I experienced?
No, no, it really wasn't.
You know, is it betterobjectively than the Hellcat?
Of course.
Slight.
(18:50):
By a country mile, but what the Hellcathad, and in fact, what the Genesis
has in spades, the sort of designswagger, just the coolness, just, uh,
I'm paying 700 pounds, 700 a month forthe next five years, but it's cars.
Bloody cool.
I'm not sure if you'd feellike that about the ZDX.
You know, I can't rememberwhat the interior looked like.
(19:12):
As I said, I was tired.
Right.
A lot of this, this might bemore about me than about the car.
And certainly I did lean onit before I'm driving wise.
And you know, it just as all EVstend to do, it just like did it all.
It didn't like fall apartat really high speeds.
It just like did it all.
I should say as well, the Fiat.
Enough speed for anynormal bear, normal time.
(19:35):
You know, I explored,uh, I explored that much.
So for the Acura, I wrote thetoggling for mode's not perfect.
Awesome ride, great ride, andit feels planted on the road.
So sorry, Acura, that I haven'tgiven you as fair a crack there.
I should have really driven that caragain afterwards, so sorry about that.
(20:11):
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(20:34):
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