The Bling Quartet- for those who can't roll stock
• Photos by John Lamm & Jeff Allen
November 2008 |
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In this day and age when the greenhouse effect takes precedence over just about every other environmental subject, the popular notion is that we must all do our part in minimizing our carbon footprint on the world, starting by staying away from high-performance automobiles. Not so fast. Trucks and SUVs usually burn more fuel and emit more carbon dioxide on a consistent basis, and if we all do our part by restricting daily home energy use, recycle everything imaginable and perhaps plant a tree or two, there's no reason to give up our weekend jaunts to the local track or to a favorite winding road, especially with cars like these. Let us introduce to you the latest crop of special high-performance machines that has recently come R&T's way. While these cars are labeled "aftermarket," their amazing attention to detail and high level of quality have them on the same playing field as today's production cars, but with a lot more guilty pleasures mixed in, including the all-important "bling" factor. Noted GT-R tuner, Mine's, shipped the world's first seriously tweaked Nissan GT-R (R35) to us from Japan. Also making the trek across the Pacific was Honda's preeminent tuner and race specialist, Spoon, and its Honda NSX-R GT. From Europe came TechArt's amazing GTstreet, based on the 997 Porsche 911 Turbo, and representing the stars and stripes is D3 and its impressive Cadillac CTS. We took this special foursome to our favorite local handling course, the Streets of Willow Springs in Rosamond, California, where we put a new twist into the proceedings by running the track in the opposite direction. Why? Because the layout provided for faster speeds on the straights, and it seemed like a fun thing to do. After all, the main reason for the existence of these cars is to have fun. Lots of fun.
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