That Was Great Fun!!
Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 9:25 am
Was invited to attend a Market Research event at Millbrook Proving Ground yesterday & got to play out with the following cars.
Bentley Continental Flying Spur
Maserati Quattroporte
Mercedes S63 AMG
Got to take all 3 cars on the 1 mile straight to test 0-100, 100-30 & 30-100, then the Bowl at speeds between 130MPH & 150MPH & finally the Hill section which as you've seen from the TV, has undulating & off camber corners & a variety of twists & turns.
Overall the day was great fun & Millbrook is a great venue.
My Summary is as follows:
The Merc was by far the quickest car & it's performance is mind blowing for it's size, as are the number of toys in this car. It also performed very well on the twisties for its size & i managed to hang it's ar$e out safely in a number of places. Overall i put this as the best of the 3 cars.
In second place was the Flying Spur, which was the biggest shocker as its gargantuan size is just not becoming with the way it performed. Marginally slower in a straight line that the S63, but the added traction from it's 4 wheel drive was obvious on the twisties & you'd really never imagine it's so fecking big & weighs 2 1/2 tons.
The biggest dissapointment was the Maserati, which just sucked & was a huge let down. By far the slowest car (stats proved this), steering was numb, brakes were shocking & generally by far the worst car. It's only possitive was it being by far the prettiest of the 3 cars. The derivative was Sporti GT (had never heard of this) & although i'd have to say it was the most sports car like of the 3 cars, overall it was also the worst performing on all the 3 tests by a big margin.
That's about it really, great fun & got paid £200 for my efforts (would have done it for free). The Sponsor was Jaguar, as they wanted opinions on the potential XJ replacement & from the pictures they showed, it looks like a serious contender in this space if launched. The Sports variant, which would no doubt be the R derivative looks interesting, with syling cues from the Maser, Merc & Lexus. I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for it
Bentley Continental Flying Spur
Maserati Quattroporte
Mercedes S63 AMG
Got to take all 3 cars on the 1 mile straight to test 0-100, 100-30 & 30-100, then the Bowl at speeds between 130MPH & 150MPH & finally the Hill section which as you've seen from the TV, has undulating & off camber corners & a variety of twists & turns.
Overall the day was great fun & Millbrook is a great venue.
My Summary is as follows:
The Merc was by far the quickest car & it's performance is mind blowing for it's size, as are the number of toys in this car. It also performed very well on the twisties for its size & i managed to hang it's ar$e out safely in a number of places. Overall i put this as the best of the 3 cars.
In second place was the Flying Spur, which was the biggest shocker as its gargantuan size is just not becoming with the way it performed. Marginally slower in a straight line that the S63, but the added traction from it's 4 wheel drive was obvious on the twisties & you'd really never imagine it's so fecking big & weighs 2 1/2 tons.
The biggest dissapointment was the Maserati, which just sucked & was a huge let down. By far the slowest car (stats proved this), steering was numb, brakes were shocking & generally by far the worst car. It's only possitive was it being by far the prettiest of the 3 cars. The derivative was Sporti GT (had never heard of this) & although i'd have to say it was the most sports car like of the 3 cars, overall it was also the worst performing on all the 3 tests by a big margin.
That's about it really, great fun & got paid £200 for my efforts (would have done it for free). The Sponsor was Jaguar, as they wanted opinions on the potential XJ replacement & from the pictures they showed, it looks like a serious contender in this space if launched. The Sports variant, which would no doubt be the R derivative looks interesting, with syling cues from the Maser, Merc & Lexus. I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for it
