The rebirth of Dan Neil
To be honest, I haven't visited Dan Neil as much on the Journal's site as I did on the Los Angeles Times' site. When you charge for most of a site's content, I visit far less than I would otherwise. But I'm happy to report that, as of tonight, none of Dan's content is behind the pay wall. Viva el Neil! So, I present to you the best of Dan from recent months.
About the title of this post, I do believe there is a liberacion occurring.
After the Pulitzer Prize, in my opinion, Dan got more serious. His desire to blow a whole column on wild description fell to deeper LAT pressure and car column utility. But I'm happy (again) to report his balance now seems imbalanced once again. Specifics of engine and suspension are running too deep, but I would argue out of obsession, not concession.
Mattering more now is his loosening of voice, all over the road. Good.
In a car dedicated to serene sensations and sheer, gliding effortlessness, calling on this kind of thrust feels very much like going over Niagara in a beautifully appointed, leather-lined barrel.
Meanwhile, a whole galactic mindset away are the hard-handed libertarian Subaru drivers, the ornery Snowbelt hermits living far out of town, where the plows never go, who need to get to and from their forested keeps. These are people who darn their own socks and whittle their own fireplace mantles.
No one will ever write erotic poetry about the Hyundai Sonata. No courting suitor ever promises a woman, "Darling, I'll give you the moon, the stars, a Sonata with cloth seats…" Snooki from "Jersey Shore" will be named secretary of agriculture before a Sonata crosses the field at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance classic-car show. These things are appliances, disposable widgets, destined to wind up as brightly colored cubes of crushed and fused metal, the unlamented scat of our mobility society.
And all of this provides a contrasting backdrop for the body-colored roof rails and the car's most heroic design flourish, the elongated chrome ellipse reaching around the side windows, a dramatic teardrop of mercury. There were moments I wanted to kiss this section of the car, or take it home and throw it in bed with me.
Can it be that Americans, with their bare muddy feet and big straw hats, are growing less provincial?
On the Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet:
Screaming into a top-down tornado at 130 mph in the Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet, I am reminded — as I'm sure most people are — of Thomas Aquinas. To wit: When is a thing perfect, complete, finished–when does Porsche drop the paint brush and walk away from the canvas? When will one more stroke diminish the whole?
The whole review is amazing. "Thus configured, and motoring at 60 mph through a Southern twilight on fresh asphalt with the top down, fireflies vectoring past the windshield like warp stars, the 911 Turbo Cab is effortless and euphoric." But then! After you start messing with the settings, the guts of the car, something happens. "The resulting machine is exactly the soul-chewing, face-pulling monster you'd expect of a new Porsche Turbo: fitful and furious, hyperkinetic, breathtakingly responsive, with big, whopping, molten sounds on trailing throttle, the sort of aural elementalism exhibited by Icelandic volcanos."
But what does it prove? It proves that if you care absolutely nothing about outward visibility–the Rapide has the sightlines of a Normandy pillbox–and that you don't care that the front roof pillars (the A pillars) are thicker than a Clydesdale's fetlock; and that in order to get in the car rear passengers will be obliged to remove their heads and feet; and that once there they will have their noses grinding against the entertainment system's headrest-mounted screens; and that the car's sun visors are three fingers wide and virtually useless; and that the rear quarters have blind spots the size of libertarianism; and that the "trunk" offers the capacity of a refrigerator's vegetable crisper… if you don't care about any of that, then you too can design a beautiful four-door super sports car.
If you regard the federal government's taking a majority stake in General Motors in 2009 as an unforgivable overreach by the Socialist in Chief Obama, a political payoff to the United Auto Workers, a fleecing of the taxpayer, etc., nothing would conform to that narrative better than a ugly, spastic Buick Regal. After all, the government can't do anything right, can it? Unfortunately for you…
Mercury built some interesting cars over the years. The 1955 Montclair with the "Sun Valley" plexiglas roof panel would cook your brains like fried eggs. Mercury also pioneered the retractable power rear window, which guaranteed the passenger compartment would always have a fresh supply of leaded exhaust fumes.
Perniciously fast, impeccably tailored (whatever "carbon leather" means), sumptuously provisioned with data-mad technology, the details of which I will download to you shortly. This car will kiss its own tail in a mountain switchback. With the top down and a max speed of 155 mph it will give you and three trusting friends the windburn of your lives. The sound the engine makes at 8,000 rpm is like taking a diamond saw to your soul.
September 16th, 2010 at 8:50 AM
[...] this summer, and foreigners made the high-end interesting, for better and worse. If spring 2010 was Dan Neil's rebirth as an auto critic, the summer was a stabilization. One needed to take off the party blindfold to [...]