Spilnersphere

Photo: Ford I'm seeing a pattern. Remember when I stated that the Lamborghini Centenario is an utter failure ? The first time I've put my thoughts about the Centenario together was actually back in March 2016 . Just a month later, my collegues from Jalopnik basically stated the same thing . Or when I declared the legitimacy of the Bugatti Veyron ? This was also an opinion from March 2016  and, yeah, not quite half a year later the same damn thing happened . Both articles were written by Máté Petrány, reckon he used to read my stuff back when I first started writing about cars in German? Anyways, so what I meant to say with this little intro is that I kinda seem to know what I'm talking about. A while ago I stuck my head out and questioned the BMW M2 . Much more controversial, though, was the fact that I recommended potential buyers to, instead, look at what the American car market has to offer since they build just as potent if not better sports cars for less mon...

Photo: BMW Why do people think the BMW M2 is something special? They'll go "Well it's light and powerfull". Ain't that what sports cars are about? What's missing these days? Lightweight, rear wheel driven cars that work as an extension of your body. So what's my problem with the M2? It's 1.5 cm narrower and a whole 21 cm shorter than a BMW M4. Yet it only weighs 11 Kilogram less. Eleven. That's 24 lb of a difference for my American readers. And since it's a BMW you still have to lay out 56,000 Euro for it. There's not a whole lot to be said about it. Sure, it has some clever carbon pads inside the gearbox making it shift smoother. It also takes its oil pump and oil pan, pistons and some other bits from the M4 but all in itself there's nothing special. In my eyes the M2 only demonstrates how utterly fat cars have become. Because dimension-wise it's closer to the M3 E46 than anything else. It's what the M4 was supposed to...

Photo: Bugatti When the Bugatti Chiron was announced, it didn't take long for people on the internet to call it "a failure". They took it to Facebook to vent their frustration with the car; "No one's able to afford such a car, why is Bugatti building this?". Even some car papers can't seem to find nice words for the new record-breaker from the French hyper car company, apart from a common take that it looks miles better than the Veyron. Especially Jalopnik seems to bear a huge disliking for the car, writing that it's "nothing new". Part of the magic of the Veyron was that no-one expected it to happen. Volkswagen simply assembled this crazy concept, really did develop an engine made of two V8s glued together, threw four turbochargers in and sold the final product capable of doing speeds beyond 400 kilometers an hour to wealthy people. Just like that. The Chiron also has an 8 liter quadturbo W16 engine and also does fourhundreda...

Photo: Porsche Today there are precisely two brands selling cars with rear-engines. Smart and Porsche. For Smart, the reason for putting the power-train in the back is practical. There's more space in the back since the rear-wheels don't need to be steered. That is also why it's rear-wheel drive, meaning the engine presses the driven wheels to the road, increasing acceleration for when you really need to get that parking spot first. For the Porsche 911 the reasons are in fact also practical. Space is key. When the first 911 was designed, Ferdinand Porsche knew exactly what he was doing. Adolf Rosenberger, racing driver from the 1920s and chief designer at Porsche, convinced him long ago that the mid-engine layout is the way to go, with the fuel tank between engine and cabin. That way, the weight-distribution stays the same at all times. Because while you wouldn't notice any difference to tne traditional front-engine, rear-wheel drive setup at first, the ha...

Photo: Lamborghini "Grr! Look at me! I want to devour your first-born!". That, I think, was the message that the designers of the Lamborghini Centenario were supposed to deliver when it was presented at the Geneva auto show last year. The result was this ugly duckling. Granted, beauty is in the eye of the beholder; if someone finds this car attractive then that's his entitled opinion. Not like the optics are the reason why I think the Centenario is an insult - if not a grab in the toilet. Under the sophisticated carbon-fibre skin hide the underpinnings of the Lamborghini Aventador, powered by the same 6.5 liter V12, modified to make the most power a Lamborghini has ever made. 770 horses let the 1520 kg (3350 lbs) super car transcend from 0 to 100 kph (60 mph) in 2.8 seconds at 8600 rpm. The Italians combined this with the most sophisticated aero since the Sesto Elemento. The Centenario is a hyper-exclusive special model, similar to the Reventón from the Frankfurt...