Somewhere high up on the Angeles Crest Highway, Tom Petty’s “You Wreck Me” plays on the Porsche 911 GT3’s sound system, searing through its 12 Bose speakers.
It’s an appropriate track. Not because I’m about to wreck the car—I’m not. The car is wrecking me. Drive enough vehicles and every once in a while one will thunk you in the cerebral cortex, forcing you to appreciate how invigorating driving—not simply piloting—a car can be.
The 911 GT3 Touring is a dying breed, a highly adept sports car powered by a naturally aspirated engine, a four-liter, 502-horsepower, six-cylinder boxer. There are cheaper machines that put out bigger numbers. We’re in an era where sports cars pile on more power, via superchargers or battery-electric powertrain technology. Yet they’re not piling on any more fun.
The GT3’s rear spoiler automatically deploys, obvs.Courtesy Image
The GT3 forces you to feel. When driving at speed into corners, the car almost seems to lean in, eerily—the result of a double-wishbone front axle suspension derived from one of the brand’s Le Mans race cars, paired with four-wheel steering. During high-speed mountain descents the GT3’s Michelins maintain absurd grip up front, thanks to the aforementioned suspension. You feel you’re in a spaceship returning to earth. With your hand on the oversized cue ball of its six-speed transmission, you realize with every not-quite-nailed shift you’re the only imperfect element in the composition. The machine could do it better, of course. But with far fewer thrills.
Want traction? The rear axle turns up to two degrees.Courtesy Image
The Touring model GT3 is for the guy who likes to drive one of the most exclusive 911 variants around yet doesn’t need to advertise it. You lose the script “911 GT3” badge and the GT3’s massive, look-at-me rear wing gets expunged in favor of an automatically deploying rear spoiler. You lose a smidge of downforce, but unless you’re dying to shave milliseconds off a lap time, you won’t care. Bonus: The slightly subtler nature of the Touring model means fewer conversations with car geeks at gas stations.
Our test car cost $182,700 with $20,000 in options, from the Gentian Blue Metallic paint job ($840) to LED matrix headlights ($3,270) to carbon fiber bucket seats ($5,900). Pricey, yes. Yet it’s already beat the brand’s wild, near-million-dollar 918 Spyder around the Nürburgring. The GT3 is essentially a race car with a sweet radio.
Back in the 80s, when Volkswagen first introduced the Golf GTI to American buyers, they ran print ads calling that first “hot hatch” a “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing.” It was a cool premise: Who wouldn’t want a sporty five-door that could ace turns like a 911 Porsche, but still cart the kids to school come Monday morning? Those were simpler times. Today, carmakers have mostly folded their tents and decided to cave to American demands of bloated SUVs. Yes, we (thankfully) still get sports cars, too, but those seldom have the practicality of a hatchback and four doors. Thankfully, there’s the Golf R, a 315hp “wolf” with AWD clawing its way forward to a 0-60mph sprint in 4.4 seconds.
That’s a full second slower than a Porsche Cayman GT4—but you could buy two Golf Rs for the price of that one Porsche, and have more than $10K left over. But this latest VW is more than just a steal. It’s a brilliant package that more enthusiast car shoppers should understand exists. Here are three reasons why the Golf R is the new reigning champ of stealth performance.
2022 Volkswagen Golf R Is the ‘Hot Hatch’ You’ve Been Waiting For
Courtesy Image
AWD That’s Not About Snow
Prior Golf R’s had all-wheel drive. But so what? That old system wasn’t nearly this versatile. While all-wheel drive typically only matters as a means of getting un-stuck in snow (or in a 4×4, rock crawling) the new 4Motion in the Golf R can send full power to either rear wheel.
By reading the steering angle and positioning of the car in a corner, Golf R can send up to 100 percent of all power to the outside rear wheel. That has the effect of tightening the radius of a turn, which is really handy when you’re powering the car just past the apex of a corner.
We found this out the fun way, by driving the R at 9/10ths through the hills of Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina—on wet asphalt. There, even though we were racing around on summer rubber, which doesn’t grip all that great at near-freezing temps, the 235/35 R19s held fast enough just because of all that over-driven juice from the AWD 4Motion system. Every time we feared overcooking a corner, subtle braking and, yep, getting back on the gas, pushed us through.
There’s a Setting Just for Drifting—And You Can Turn Off Stability Control
To properly drift a car not only takes serious skill, it demands the right tools. Sure, a race car with all stability and traction controls excised does the job fine—save that you probably want that tech for daily driving safety. VW’s drift mode (which has a warning that says you have to be off public roads to deploy it), recalibrates throttle inputs so it’s easier to keep the engine at higher revs, and tells the gearbox to hold those revs for the same function. Then, the aforementioned 4Motion function powers that outside rear wheel as you crank the steering inputs in a circle. Bingo! You’re drifting like a pro!
If you plan to race, the driver can turn off all stability and traction control functions (they’ll re-awaken in a full slide), and sub-menus let you specifically dial in more precise combinations. For instance, if you like a heavier steering feel closer to a race mode, but softer suspension because you live in ‘Merica, where the roads are beat to hell, that’s entirely up to you. We love this, because even in cars with “sport” etc., modes, it’s too rare that they let you mix and match to this degree.
Courtesy Image
An Engine That’s Mellow, Not Hyper
Yep, Volkswagen’s yanking 315 horses from a relatively tiny, 2.0-liter four-cylinder, and a whopping 280 pound-feet of torque, too. (You’ll get 295 pound-feet from the DSG automatic.) Peak torque hits just around 2,000 RPM and hangs on to just about 5,000 RPM, and that lets you upshift earlier, so you’re not flogging the engine for all it’s worth to get the R flying. Both second and third gears are plenty tall, too, with the 6,500 RPM redline not hitting in second gear until you’ve tagged 70mph.
You can bang from gear to gear gunning for the moon—but you don’t have to. The R’s joys can be be found just tootling around, and that more flexible torque curve offers power more broadly, so keeping the turbocharged engine on the boil isn’t a chore. It’s fun. Oh, and should you want the six-speed manual gearbox instead of that automated DSG seven-speed, it’s not a pain to own, even in traffic. Shift lazily. The R won’t shudder because you’re pulling uphill at 35mph in third gear.
Courtesy Image
Great Steering and Manual Modes
Okay, say you do want the DSG because you live where traffic stinks—DSG lets you just roll in “Drive” when you’re slogging through stop-and-go highway clots.
Fortunately, when (if?) the road ever does open up, VW now allows the driver to customize how DSG performs. Start using the manual paddles that halo the steering wheel and, should you choose, DSG won’t shift itself back to automatic mode. If you don’t shift, the car won’t shift for you. This, by the way, is what Porsche offers, too, and it’s great to see Volkswagen follow suit.
Speaking of which, few brands have managed to make electronic steering feel as analogue as Porsche. But VW’s R is getting close, via a clever trick. They bunched the teeth of the steering gear tighter right at the center of the rack, then spaced them more widely at the far ends. Think of this as leverage: You don’t want to apply a ton of brute force just steering off center, when small inputs to initiate a high-speed turn should be all about finesse. You need just the opposite response when you have to crank the wheel right to the end of its limit, like when you’re parallel parking, and those wider-spaced teeth allow more leverage per input for those slow-speed efforts. So the steering feels precise when you want it, but not heavy when you don’t. Pretty sweet, in other words.
You’re waiting for something we don’t dig? Okay, here’s one. The cheaper GTI can be had with cloth seats, but the R only comes with Nappa leather. We favor the fabric, even though, yes, the R’s chairs are dang comfortable, too.
There’s no shortage of hulking SUVs designed to bring your family and all your gear on adventures—or to the grocery store. While often overlooked in the full-size, three-row category, the Nissan Armada is making a case for itself with a 2021 refresh. The updates are aimed at making the ride more refined, comfortable, and luxurious for seven or eight passengers, while keeping the brutish V8 power the truck-based SUV’s always had. On the inside, the sport-ute feels more like Nissan’s Infinity QX80 than the brand’s Titan pickup. That’s where the Armada story started: Nissan bolted an SUV’s body to the truck’s frame back in 2004. To see if the updates are enough to put the Armada into the conversation with the Tahoe, Yukon, and Expedition, we packed the SUV with luggage, bikes, and (at one point) five kids and headed out on a long weekend trip from New York to Rhode Island.
Courtesy Image
Day 1: Settling Into the Interior
With the Armada’s roots planted firmly in a pickup truck, it’s no surprise its early interiors felt truck-like. Utility trumped luxury, with swaths of hard plastic trim in the cabin that made pulling into the mall parking lot feel like clocking in on a construction site. That’s changed for 2021. The seats up front are comfortable and plush with quilted leather and soft-touch accents. The center console has a traditional shifter, which we like, and doors that fold down to hide cup holders, which helps keep the interior tidy. Anyone with open cup holders knows how quickly they become the driver’s damp, sticky, penny-filled lost-and-found.
The middle row can be a bench or two captain’s chairs, and in our tester they easily flipped forward for third-row access. Those sitting in the middle have a center console, but they can also flip the top open on the front row’s armrest to access storage. During our trip, we stashed snacks and charging cables there, which cut down on whining.
While that last row is roomy enough for small children on quick rides of, say, less than 45 minutes, it’s too tight for adults on all but the shortest trips. If your brood requires stashing a child back there consistently, by default it’ll have to be the shortest one of the lot due to the limited head- and legroom. And even then, she or he is likely to complain. That said, four or five adults can find the Armada a very comfortable and quiet ride. In our case, two adults and five children all under the age of 10—with three spaced across the rear seat—had enough space to handle a 30-minute ride without a mutiny. The trunk behind the third row is a sparse 16.5 cubic feet—that’s less than some crossovers provide. If you plan to have the third row up all the time, that won’t leave a ton of room to schlep gear or groceries.
Outside, the styling is big, bold, and rocks plenty of chrome accents. Everything from the front windshield out is redesigned for 2021, including the streamlined Nissan v-motion grille and attractive headlights. Underneath, 20-inch aluminum alloy wheels fill their wells nicely (and also make using the side steps obligatory). Taller riders will appreciate the high step-in height. Chrome runs almost the entire length of the car, modernizing the look.
But the rear bumper is a love-hate detail. It projects out, which can get in the way while you’re loading up gear, but it also serves as a seat when the liftgate is open. When we loaded up our Thule hitch-mounted rack with adult bikes, the bumper left little space between the car and floppy front bike tires, though securing the bike tires should keep the paint safe.
Courtesy Image
Day 2: The Tech
The technology inside is probably the biggest leap forward with the new Armada. The center console is topped with a 12.3-inch-wide display. You can sync Apple CarPlay to it wirelessly or use Android Auto through the USB-C port. The graphics on the touch screen are sharp and it’s highly responsive, with almost no lag. The screen is paired with two knobs for volume and tune that also help you navigate through on-screen menus, and those work well, too. For low-speed maneuvering, the touchscreen gives you a 360-degree view around the car with graphics that are clear enough to keep you away from light poles and other obstacles. Although the screen’s size sounds impressive, only about 3/4 of it is a touchscreen. The right-hand portion is an information display, and that chunk sometimes shows info that you can see elsewhere, like the time.
The HVAC, thankfully, has its own set of buttons, so making climate control adjustments doesn’t require going down a rabbit hole of touchscreen menus. Under the screen, a wireless charging cubby makes a nice spot to hide a phone while driving; it also prevents it from sliding to the ground when you sprint from a stoplight.
Nissan’s safety suite includes things like emergency braking and blind-spot monitoring, which was our biggest pet peeve. The hitch-mounted rack loaded with bikes interfered with the backup sensor, which then jolted the car to a sudden stop when in reverse. The feature got so annoying we ended up turning it off. The instrument cluster has a centered, 7-inch screen that does a good job of indicating what features are on and helps you zip through menus controlled by buttons on the steering wheel. After a couple of days getting acquainted, we found the interface was pretty smooth and allows you to handle many adjustments—radio volume, for example—just by glancing down at the dash.
Courtesy Image
Day 3: The Drive
The daily driving with the Armada is smooth, thanks to the buttery seven-speed automatic transmission, and quiet even at highway speeds. While it can feel a little springy and less refined in turns, overall it drives like a smaller truck despite sitting so high up. Nissan kept the 5.6-liter V8 engine the Armada’s always had as the only engine option. The powerplant cranks out 400 horsepower with 413 lb-ft of torque with a max towing capacity of 8,500 pounds. Between city and highway, the Armada came in at about 15 mpg, which isn’t great—something your wallet would like you to consider before buying. A hitch is standard and integrated trailer sway control is built into most of the trim levels. In a way, Nissan’s telling you this SUV is for towing: boats, Jet Skis, trailers, etc. The selectable four-wheel drive on our tester is available as an option.
Bottom line: The Armada starts at about $50,000, with our four-wheel driver tester coming in at over $63,000. It faces stiff competition from other people-hauling, full-size, third-row SUVs that have more room, like the Tahoe, Suburban, Expedition, and even some larger crossovers. But with those other SUVs coming in at six figures when well-appointed, the Armada carves out a niche for itself—and the stout engine can make sense if you need a tow vehicle.
