2013 Lexus LFA

The V10 engine in a Lexus LFA revs from idle to the red line in just 0.6 of a second

Lexus LFA

That's so fast, the engineers had to fit a digital rev-counter because a conventional needle couldn’t keep up. Toyota says that, for prefect handling, 52 per cent of the weight should be over the rear axle. As a result, the LFA's radiators and battery are at the back. So, too, is the washer bottle. It has a single-patle flappy-paddle gearbox. The changes are slow and savage. But each time it shifts cogs, it feels like MR Mucsle Man has walloped you in the back. With a sledgehammer. This gives drivers a sense that they really are in a racing car. The body may look conventional, but there's genuine aero here. As I discovered at Willow Spring in California recently, The fast you go, the more grip you have. There are sound tubes that feed the roar of the engine's induction directly into the cockpit. And there's a women in the boot who can find you the nearest Japanese/Euro fusion restaurant. I love the Lexus LFA a lot, So much, that i recently described it as the best car I've ever driven. Naturally, this caused both Hammond and May to scoff very loudly. Mainly because-as they kept pointing out-it costs 359,590 Euro. That's nearly give times more than a Nissan GT-R which, if anything, is even more technical. It's way more, too, than a Ferrari 458 or a Merc SLS. It is, they argued, a stupid price

Lexus LFA

But they're wrong. Arguing that the Lexus LFA is too expensive is like arguing that, at 100 billion Euro, The Mona Lisa is too expensive. Or saying that there's no point buying a 20 million Euro Henry Moore sculpture when, for just a fiver, you could buy a nice stone otter from an Oxfam shop. With a car like the Lexus LFA, price not relevant. because it's just a tech fest. A howling, thrusting, tyre-squealing arrowhead of industrial-grade showing off. It belongs in a collector's climate-controlled garage, as an example of the moment. It is emphatically not a car you are actually going to buy and use. If you do, you may find that , from time to time, it's a bit annoying. Because, in among all the glorious detail and the sense it was designed by engineering psychopaths, there are some small issues. All of which reared theor heads on a short trup to the pub last month. The increasingly earnest BBC news teams were advising motorists to say at home and not go out unless the journey was "absolutely necessary". But it was necessary. I wanted some lunch, And anyway, it was a beautiful day. Not a cloud in the sky, and, on the ground, a light sprinkling of Jack Frost hardened snow. So, I climbed into the Lexus LFA and, 10 minutes later, with a cricked neck, a punctured lung and a twisted gut, I had managed to fasten the desperately fiddly seatbelt. Ten minutes after that, I had overcome the enormous turning circle by executing a 77-point turn, and was finally pointing in the right direction. But i wasn't going anywhere, because the race-inspired tyres were struggling quite badly with the icy gravel. I therefore undid the seatbelt, broken out the shovels, and the blow torch and the bits of sacking. And 10 minutes later, I was back in the cockpit, hungry from all the exertions and looking forward to much lunch. Ten minutes after that, I had done up the seatbelt again, And i was off

Lexus LFA

To quench my thirst, I reached into the door pocket for a refreshing can of fizzy pop and took a slug. And the noted there was no cup holder. But that wasn’t the end of the world, because the Lexus has a fuel tank exactly seven per cent smaller than the fuel thank on a Zippo lighter. I therefore grazed the nose going into the petrol station, undid my seatbelt, deposited the mostly full can of zesty drink in a bin, filled up with 0.3 litres of V-Power, got back in, and, after a brief 10-minute gap during which I did up my seatbelt, I dragged the low nose onto the road again. And set off

Zigzagging furiously. Most odd. I'd driven this exact car before, in the summer, in Yorkshire, and it tracked straight and true. But since then, somebody in overalls has made a small change to the undersides-Tyres? Comber?- and as a result, it simply followed every small groove in the road, irrespective of what i did with the wheel. To take my mind off the problem, I turned on the excellent Mark Levinson stereo and selected DAB. Which wasn't working. And then it was time for some more petrol. After this and another punctured lung from doing up the seatbelt, the road opened out and I put the hammer down. Soon, i was doing 70mph, and my ears started to bleed. Because at this speed, the engine is howling at 3,000rpm. You crave a seventh gear in a Lexus LFA, but there isn't one. You also crave a bit more space in the boot. Because any suitcase has to be fitted in the space behind the seats. Which means you can't see anything out of the rear-view mirror. Which is why I didn't spot the approaching police car

Lexus LFA interior

After a bit of finger-wagging, i set off once more with the radio crackling and the engine howling and the tryes following the grooves left by snowploughs. Until eventually, I ended up at the snowplough depot. This is where all Lexus LFA drivers will end up, if a man in an overall has been underneath with a spanner. Eventually, though, I made it to the pub where i had what had become supper, and I gave the Lexus LFA a bit of thought ... With the possible exceptions of a V8 Ariel Atom or a Caterham R500, I cannot think of any car which makes going to the pub on a crisp winter's day such a chore. For willow Springs? Yes. For that road which twists up into the hills outside Plam Springs? Yes again. But for going from Chipping Norton to The kingham Plough for some snails and mushrooms on toast? No. You'd be better off jogging. However, I will not change my mind about this car. I still believe it's the best I've ever driven. Because, for just a few Quid, You could buy a picture to hang over your mantelpiece. It might even be quite nice, But that doesn't stop you dreaming about owning Turner's priceless Rain, Steam and Speed. It’s old It’s cracked. It's fuzzy and the insurance would be huge. But what would you rather have? That? Or the Crying Boy? Hammond and May would go for The Crying Boy. But I have a soul, which is why I wouldn't

 

Ford Police Interceptor

American police cars had become hopelessly outdated. Now for has decided to haul them kicking and screaming into the 21st century

Ford Police Interceptor

As Elwood famously said to this brother, Jake, while trying to sell him on their new wheels: It's got a cop motor. "It's got cop tyres, cop suspension, cop shocks." His point being that police cars are faster and handle better than civilian models. Or at least they did in 1980, three years before the Crown Victoria entered the US cop-car fleet. That hasn't been true for years now. As modern cars have got faster and faster, US cops have been stuck in their ageing Crown Vics and have become an easy Hollywood cliché for slow, bad-handling cars. But not for much longer. Now that ford has finally put prehistoric Crown Victoria on notice, there's a new-look sheriff in town. And he now has the means to catch you without having to resort tithe radio for back-up. While this is good and bad news- depending on which side of the criminal fence you stand- it's great for the cops who drive them. But it hasn't been done just for their benefit. The US police car market is around 50,000 units a year, so it's a good chunk of business

Ford Police Interceptor

 GM and Chrysler both offer their own cop-spec cars, the Chevrolet Caprice PPV and the Dodge Charger Pursuit respectively, But Ford has over 50 per cent of the market. And it intends to keep it, with not one but two new vehicles. Yes, there are now two versions of the new Ford Police Interceptor: the (US-only) Taurus-based model, which is called the Utility. They are basically very similar underneath to make servicing fleets of them easier and cheaper- the 18-inch steel wheels, 60per cent larger and thicker brake discs and many of the other components are interchangeable. The service chief just buys a load of each and fits them on whatever vehicle needs it. Both are several worlds more advanced than the outgoing model. The four key areas of development are: officer protection, performance, durability and design. The protection features include passing a 75mph rear-carsh test (a real problem in the Crown Vic), a beefed-up body shell and intelligent airbags that can tell the difference between the car being hit by a shower of bullets (they don't go off) and getting into a shunt they do 

Ford Police Interceptor

Ford Police Interceptor can also be fitted with level 3 ballistic door panels, which can stop everything up to and including a .44 Magnum semi-jacketed hollow-point bullet entering the cabin. You'd want those fitted, wouldn't you? Performance upgrades start with the 3.5-litre EcoBoost turbo V6 engines that, even in their lowest-output versions, still kick out over 115bhp more and use 20 per cent less fuel than the Crown Vic's old small-block V8. A 305bhp, 3.7-litre V6 is also available in both cars. But the big daddy engine, the 365bhp motor that is similar to the one is the civilian Taurus SHO (super High Output), is only available in the Sedan. It's not exactly the same, as it has to be able to sit and idle for hours at a time. Some cars run around the clock across different shifts, so it has a bigger oil capacity, a stronger oil pan and better cooling. So it can go on producing fill horsepower long after a civilian version would have faded. The gearbox also has it own party trick. Called pursuit mode, it cuts in automatically when brake pressure and lateral acceleration levels suggest the law enforcer wants to get out of a corner quickly, holding onto a gear instead of trying to get into top gear as quickly as possible. Other features that help the new black-and-whites keep on moving further and faster include a standard, pursuit-tuned AWD system. This is a front-biased set-up that has the ability to shove up to half of the torque to the rear wheels as required. Allied to this is a chassis control system tuned by the police instructors to stop wheel spin and lurid under-or oversteer

Ford Police Interceptor

Ford Police Interceptor's system has been designed to be neutral, so it will eventually start to slide. But at much higher speed than before. The cars won't crumple into a ball quite so easily now, either. Special items that improve durability include heavy-duty front suspension designed to ram kerbs and go over debris, a 220-amp alternator (to run all the in-car electronics), underside bash plates, extra door tethers and the aforementioned bigger, badder brakes and heavy-duty tyres. The inside of the car hasn't been left alone, either. The first thing you notice is that there is now a normal, modern-looking dash with a couple of screens and a few dials and-a-piece-of-fake-wood effort in the Crown Vic

Ford Police Interceptor

All the sirens and light can now be activated by steering-wheel-mounted switches. And there’s an even voice-activated command and calling, so there's no need to drive one-handed while grappling with the radio. This is starting to sound unfair. But, as a very brief drive showed, not as unfair as it's going to get when there are more of these on the US road. The Sedan handles like a sports car, ride like a Jaguar, and accelerates like a muscle car. The brakes are monstrously strong, there's plenty of grip and that chassis system works well enough to allow you to keep the hammer down long and hard. So the net result is this: you can try and outrun one, but I wouldn't recommend it. Instead, I suggest you try another line from The Blues Brothers to explain your excessive speed. Try: "we are on a mission from god." And please do let us know how you get on

Ford Police Interceptor

Ford Interceptor Sedan specs

The numbers: 3,500cc, 6cyl,AWD, 365bhp, 350lb ft, 23.0mpg, n/a g/km CO2, 0-60mph in 6.5secs, 148mph, n/a kg

Ford Interceptor Sedan price $n/a

The Verdict: About time Ford produced a better car than the Crown Vic. Didn’t have to be this good, though

Mercedes SLS GT3

Spare cash? After a little something for the weekend? How about a full-bore Mercedes SLS racer? Fancy a brief test drive? Hell, yes

Mercedes SLS GT3

Big, chunky and heroically front-engine, the AMG SLS shouldn't really work as a racing car. But since debuting in 2010, it's racked up 37 class victories in GT3, and despite its bewigged appearance, it's also earned a reputation for being user-friendly. Good news if you're planning a 24-hour assault on the Ring. Today, though, we're at Ascari in southern Spain, where the rain is falling not just mainly on the plain but also all over this circuit's custom-made and notoriously tricky low-and high-speed corners."The track has an amazing amount of grip, despite the conditions," says my instructor, Bernd Schneider, four-time DTm champion and, rumors has it, the most committed tin-top racer of all time. "I'm only a second or two slower than i would be on a full dry set-up." Thank you, Bernd. Thanks to the FIA's 'balance of performance' equivalency rules, the SLS GT3 runs 552bhp, slightly less than the road car. But at 1.350kg, it's also much lighter. And considerably trickier to get into

Mercedes SLS GT3

Mercedes SLS GT3's seat is a huge, all-enveloping carbon item, but the instrument lay-out is easy to fathom, and overall it feels functional, purposeful and, yes, surprisingly comfortable once you're installed. A firm prod of an unexpectedly small starter button wakes the beast. Even at idle, it makes the most magnificent noise, a martial beat overlaid with a flatulent Brain blessed blare. Press the clutch, engage first with a hearty mechanical thump using the column-mounted paddle, and easy away on around 3,000rpm

Mercedes SLS GT3

Mercedes SLS GT3 is overwhelmingly brilliant. I'm on wets, and will never go fast enough to generate useful heat in the rubber or steel breaks, and naturally I'm keen not to fall off as i follow my instructor, ex-F1 driver Karl Wendlinger, but, even so, the clarity of the car's responses floods your system like a naughty narcotic. There is grip to spare, even in these murky conditions, provided you are smooth and progressive, and it powers forward with thunderous determination. Suddenly, the thought of monstering one round the Nordschleife in the middle of the night doesn't seem so scary. Then again, civilizations have risen and gallen in the gap between where I begin to brake and where i actually should be started to brake. Having raced a bit, this confirms my theory the world's best drivers aren't necessarily measured by how fast they can go, it's how good they are at slowing down the counts. Three laps later, it's all over. I feel bereft. The narcotic has me hooked, which is what always happens in a decent racing car. "you have the best job in the world," I say to Wendlinger. "It is possible, yes," he replies, with a hint of a smile

Mercedes SLS GT3

Mercedes SLS GT3 specs

The numbers: 6203cc,V8 RWD, 552bhp, n/a lb ft, n/a mpg, n/a g/km CO2, 0-62 in n/a secs, n/a mph, 1350kg

Mercedes SLS GT3 price: 397,460 Euro

The Verdict: A big bear of a car, but SLS GT3 is surprisingly easy to wrestle with