I've wondered what Dan Neil thinks of British Dan Neil and vice versa. Now Ezra Dyer of Automobile writes about Top Gear (USA) auditions:

I pitch them an idea or two – one host takes evasive driving lessons, another takes a police pursuit course, then they're let loose on a track in Dodge Chargers for a hot pursuit – but get a rather cool response. Later, I talk to Dan Neil from the L.A. Times, who was also called to audition, and ask him how his interview went. He says they asked him about Jeremy Clarkson, the linchpin of British Top Gear, and he replied, "Jeremy Clarkson is a well-known pedophile and the ugliest man in Britain." Clearly, Neil's interview tactics were slightly different from mine.

Neil mentions a BMW: "The new 135i is uglier than a Radcliffe glee club, but it's also fierce, fervid, delicious, a bottle of Bollinger that's lost its cork." Neil discusses the Prius: "Public transportation? Please. We could hire Las Vegas showgirls as conductors and people still wouldn't take light rail." Neil reviews the new Dodge Ram: "Perhaps you're eyeing the overhead beam in the basement, wondering whether it will hold your dangling, strangling weight. Perhaps the muzzle of that .44 magnum is looking oh-so-flavorful. Perhaps that cross-town bus roaring down the street seems less like public transportation and more like a 30,000-pound cure for what ails you." Neil mocks Venza's name: "How about 'Camrelco,' since the Venza looks like a cross between a Camry and a Norelco shaver for your personal area? Remingtry?" 

Clarkson writes about punishment and the Mazda6 Sport: "The worst punishment I was ever given was being ordered to write 1,000 words on the inside of a ping pong ball. It was hell. Strangely, however, while it seemed to have absolutely no point at the time, it has come in very handy this week. Because writing 1,000 words on the inside of a table tennis ball means I am well placed to write 1,000 words on the Mazda6 Sport. In fact, I've written 862 and I haven't even started yet."

Clarkson reviews an Alfa Romeo: "Have you noticed something odd about Rolexes? Especially the modern ones that wind automatically when you move your wrist about? A great many owners wear them on their right hand. I jump to no conclusions here but you can feel free."

Clarkson reviews the new Range Rover TDV8 Vogue SE: "You can even have something called a VentureCam — a wireless hand-held camera that feeds its picture to the sat nav screen on the dash. The idea is that you hang it out of the window while driving off-road so you can see what the terrain directly ahead of the wheels is like. However, since its docking port is in the passenger footwell, it can also be used for looking up your wife's skirt. And trust me, you aren't offered that facility in any other car I've driven."

Jeremy Clarkson's testing of the Tesla Roadster was controversial but ultimately boring. Our friend Dan Neil, who compared a previous Tesla's speed to a ride at Six Flags Over Hell, has risen better to the occasion.

What transpires in the next 2 seconds is the heart and soul, the essence and spirit, of the Roadster. This is the trick this one-trick pony does better than perhaps any sports car on Earth. We in the business call it "rolling acceleration."

At about 20 mph I nail the go pedal, and the power electronics module summons a ferocious torrent of amps, energizing the windings of the 375-volt AC-induction motor. Instantly — I mean right now, like, what the heck hit me? — the motor's 276 pound-feet of torque is converted to dumbfounding acceleration. Total number of moving parts: one.

Street lights streak past me like tracer bullets. My little mental circuits go snap-pop with the thrust. God has grabbed me by the jockstrap and fired me off his thumb, rubber band-style. Wow.

Dan Neil drives the Aston Martin 2009 DBS from Quantum of Solace.

With my rock-hard abs and murderous smile, I'm frequently mistaken for James Bond. I open cans of Coke with my Walther PPK. I settle hotel bills with lethal kung fu finger strikes. A glimpse of my Omega Speedmaster has caused waitresses to spontaneously disrobe.

My charms, however, are somewhat diminished when I climb into my white Honda minivan. Really, the only time my sick-cool man-pantherism can achieve its maximum fullness is when I'm obliged to test an Aston Martin.

"No lasers, alas, no oil spreaders, no glove box-mounted defibrillator to treat the beauty-induced tachycardia. God, this is one smoking-hot car. My desire, the sheer want of it, stings my face like sleet."

Jeremy Clarkson, AKA British Dan Neil, meanwhile, is angering Tesla and writing this passage amid his review of Volvo CX60 this month:

The best thing about this car is how it makes you feel. And how it makes you feel is middle class. Really middle class. Stepping inside this car is like stepping into Johnny Boden's boxer shorts while cheering on your daughter at a gymkhana. This is a car for extremely pretty women, who will use it in the morning for going to the gym, in the evening for doing the school run and in the afternoon for having an affair. I can hear them now. "Would you like to come for a ride in my Vulva?"

That's probably what the anti-crash system is for. So that Arabella doesn't have to explain to her husband why the nose on her car is all smashed in and what on earth she was doing on the wrong side of town with her tennis coach at three in the afternoon.

Wikipedia: "Boden is a London-based clothing company, founded in 1991 by Johnnie Boden. … Boden has a reputation for designing bright, attractive clothes for the middle classes." Also: "Gymkhana is a term used in the United Kingdom [and apparently a few other places] … to describe an equestrian event consisting of timed games for riders on horses. These events often emphasize children's participation…."

A Dan Neil review, from my old bookmarks: "Honda is the guy selling umbrellas on the corner when it starts to rain. The lady selling flowers when you're late for an anniversary dinner. The vendor selling fire extinguishers when your underwear bursts into flames."

Other Neil news: He wants to nationalize GM, and his suit has moved. Meanwhile, British Dan Neil is, as always himself. Of a recent journey to Vietnam, Jeremy Clarkson writes this past week, "There was one chap — we'll call him Charlie — who was in charge of a Toyota minivan…."

Dan Neil reviews a home locking system operated by fingerprint and other biometric sensors. He gets to the key point halfway through.

Also, the lock will not operate if the finger in question has been separated from its owner. This addresses my first concern about this technology — that a routine burglary might escalate into a digit-removing nightmare and one of the unlikeliest sentences ever uttered: "Give me the finger!"

"If you don't have a live person, it's not going to work," Kwikset spokesman Eric Lundquist said. I only hope this fact is well known in the home-invasion industry.

Jeremy Clarkson, meanwhile, links the terrible Chrysler Sebring to America's age, CEO jobs, the financial crisis, and the war in Iraq.

Jeremy Clarkson, I'm thinking of renaming him Naughty Dan Neil. Yes, Neil once reportedly lost a job for extending his car reviewing to the back seat, but what has he done for us lately? Become happily wed? Begun a beautiful family? And now he's suing the only boss who'd let him review every car from the back seat. Clarkson, you've got to take our pants off for us, British-style. (I imagine this involves hopping.)

Clarkson on the British hating on people in fancy cars:

Why? It's not like Andrew Lloyd Webber spends his evenings being carried around council estates in Slough in a sedan chair, waving his jewels out of the window. He just gets on with his life in a way that has no effect whatsoever on the way you live yours or I live mine.
 
It's like being kept awake at night with a burning sense of envy about Cliff Richard's youthful good looks. What should we do? Take a Black & Decker sander to his cheekbones? Why? Because disfiguring Cliff's face won't make any difference to your own.
 
I don't yearn for many aspects of the American way but they do seem to have this dreadful bitterness under control. When they see a man pass by in a limousine, they say: "One day, I'll have one of those." When we see a man pass by in a limo, we say: "One day, I'll have him out of that."
 
All this past week, I've been driving around in a Rolls-Royce coupé and it's been a genuinely alarming insight into the bitterness of Britain's obese and stupid underclass. Because when you drive this enormous monster past a bus queue, you realise that hate is not an emotion. It's something you can touch, and see and smell.

Clarkson on something:

Sarah Brown, the wife of our prime minister, is a complete mystery. For all I know, she collects fish, is qualified to fly fighter jets, has two left feet and sounds exactly like that woman with the broom in the Tom and Jerry cartoons.

Clarkson on camping:

Tenting works well when you are in Afghanistan, fighting the Taliban, but I find it extraordinary that a family should say: "Well. Things are tight. So let's spend our holiday this year soggy and quarrelling in a room none of us can stand up in properly."
 
If you are that hard up, and you are so desperate for a change, then why not simply stay at home and cut your legs off?
 
…
 
It hasn't. As I discovered on my trip to the North Pole, it's still an impenetrable maze of zippers, flaps, straps, exploding cookers and tent pegs that have the structural rigidity of overboiled pasta. Oh, and the skin of the modern tent is still exactly one inch smaller than the frame over which it must be stretched. This means that when you finally get it up you will have no fingernails, no wife, no children, no voice and not a shred of dignity either.
 
And where will you be? In a wood? Then you won't sleep because every noise at night, among the trees, is Freddy Krueger. In a field? Nope. You will wake up dead with a cow on your head. On a campsite? Ha. Well, then you've really had it because women, and I have no clue why, think tenting is erotic. Which means you're going to have to spend the night listening to a hundred wizened ramblers bouncing around on the only pole in all of tenting that's still upright.

Still trying to imagine the woman with the broom.

Dan Neil video descripton: "Neil demonstrates that he can shave, look at a Playboy centerfold and tie a tie while driving. But not all at the same time. What a wuss."

Meanwhile, British Dan Neil drives the Porsche 911 Carrera GT2. "Golf is not mysterious," he begins. "I understand absolutely why someone would play it once … and then decide to play it again. It's not because they have a Rupert Bear fixation or because they dislike the company of women or because they secretly want to be a freemason."

If I were British, I'd know who Rupert Bear was.

Anyway. British Dan Neil, maybe not a fan of Dan Neil after all? The oddness comes here: "It's my job, each week, to come here and write about flowers, frogs, foxes and fornication and then, towards the end, say a little bit about the car I've been driving. It is not my job to tell the motor manufacturers what to do. Some of my colleagues in this auto journalism malarkey are an extension of the car industry, shaping its policy and directing future operations. They are clever. They can understand and explain torque. I can't. I'm just a punter, test-driving cars and saying whether I like them or not."

Following British Dan Neil's trip to the United States, American Dan Neil takes a narrative trip to the continent in his lede this week.

I come from a long line of Europeans — illiterate, mud-eating Europeans from the Outer Hebrides, to be exact, whose idea of a good time was to go down to the firth and watch the plague victims wash out to sea. Even so, I've always had an affinity for the Continent. Between New Orleans and Amsterdam, I prefer Amsterdam. I'll take Rousseau over Jefferson, Beck's over Budweiser, Formula One over NASCAR, and Heidi Klum over my knee.

And, as many able correspondents to this column have pointed out, I seem to prefer European cars. I suppose that's fair. Everybody has his or her own tastes. I simply prefer superior cars with epic racing and engineering pedigrees, while others prefer Toyotas.

Meanwhile, Dan writes in the Times Magazine this week about love. Meanwhile, the other Times publishes the winner of its collegiate Modern Love essay contest. I like the winner but don't love it, so I'm waiting to see the runners-up. Meanwhile, Jason Segel wants to cast Charles Grodin — one of the all-time great Muppet interactors, in my opinion — in his new Muppet movie. Meanwhile, British Dan Neil uses this lede this week to defend SUV driving.

All black men are thieves. All Jews would sell their mothers for a pound. All Muslims are suicide bombers and everyone in Ireland is as thick as a slab of cheese. Yes. Right. And everyone with a Chelsea tractor is a stick-thin blonde whose head is so full of useless social engagements that she can't actually be bothered to steer round other cars, street furniture or bus shelters.

It ain't necessarily so. All sorts of people buy 4x4s for all sorts of reasons. And contrary to what the global warmists would have us believe, only some are stick-thin blonde women who won't actually stop until the underside of their car is so jammed up with run-over pedestrians the wheels won't go round any more.

The wave of hatred, then, that engulfs the off-roader is nothing more than ill informed prejudice. And what makes my blood boil is that things are getting worse….

Clarkson gets to the SUV eventually.

He doesn't go here every week, but inspiration seems to play a role when he does. The 2008 Porsche GT2 meets the requirement.

You may recall from your psychology classes the name Harry Harlow, a controversial researcher known for his wire monkey-surrogate mother experiments. One group of baby rhesus monkeys was taken away from its mothers and given a maternal figure made of terry cloth; another group was given a figure made of just bare wire. These experiments demonstrated the famous Harry-Harlow-was-a-toolbag principle.

In Porsche's laboratory, the relatively luxe 911 Turbo (what with its padded seats and all) is the terry-cloth monkey and the new GT2 — stripped utterly to its essentials, inhospitable, a harsh mockery of the comforts of the automobile — is the wire monkey. To love the GT2 is to embrace its malign indifference to your well-being. To cuddle one is to feel the cold bite of steel against your cheek. Mommy, why won't you hold me?

Keep reading for "a truism, a Zen koan of automobility." Also, if you need to look up "Higgs boson," the info you need is here.

Meanwhile, British Dan Neil confuses me.

Each of the summer's social occasions has its own code of conduct and everyone makes much effort to ensure they turn up in the correct clothes. At Royal Ascot, for instance, it is important to demonstrate that you started with nothing and have become very rich. And so you must go to www.russianbrides.com and rent yourself a 6ft hooker whom you then make taller still by kitting her out in a hat made from tinsel and old tractor tyres.

At Wimbledon you must develop phlebitis and a set of bingo wings bigger than most hang-gliders. At the Goodwood Revival you will need David Niven's moustache. And at Glyndebourne your black tie should be aubergine.

I know who David Niven is. That's about it. As per usual, the car actually featured in the review appears in the 12th paragraph.