Ferrara: Now on "Top Gear," the fastest way to Las Vegas...
Have you seen a limo around here waiting for me?
The ultimately confusing driving machine...
But I still can't figure out what to call it.
And some poison on our track.
I got a lot of speed and no control right now.
Welcome to "Top Gear."
On this show, no weight will be lost, no wives will be swapped,
but if you enjoy the smell of tire smoke,
this is where you belong.
I'm Adam Ferrara, that's Tanner Foust,
and this is Rutledge Wood.
And this, courtesy of the petersen automotive museum,
is a Porsche 356.
It's the first production car in the world to carry the Porsche name.
Company founder Ferdinand Porsche once said,
"if one does not fail at times, then one has not challenged himself."
And now the company he left behind is challenging itself,
to come up with a new car.
I went out to see whether or not,
they were setting themselves up for a fail.
Wood: In two syllables, it defines an entire category...
The sports car.
One glance of its coat of arms conjures up superiority,
racing pedigree, and a rear engine.
And their pursuit of automotive advancement
gives us a faint glimmer into the future of automobiles.
The name Porsche is synonymous with sports cars.
And they've had some great ones, like the 911.
They've also had some not-so-great ones like the 924.
But their newest model is low, sleek, muscular, and...
It's a four-door.
This is the Porsche Panamera turbo.
It'll set you back almost 134 grand,
and that buys you a staggering top speed of 188 miles per hour.
That's not just sports-car performance.
It's supercar speed.
But it's a sedan.
Looks like the engineers at Porsche have taken up their founder's challenge
and delivered a 911
with a front engine and too many doors.
Now, you might be thinking, that's a big fat fail already.
I mean, Porsche should be making sports cars, not sedans.
And they've never made a sedan, which clearly shows.
Just look at this thing.
The last time you saw something this hunched back,
it was hanging off the cathedral at Notre Dame.
Pretty it's not.
It gets a little better once you get inside,
but the cockpit's got so many bells and whistles,
I need chewbacca riding shotgun.
Look at all these buttons.
Earlier I tried to put on my heated seat,
and two missiles came out oj the headlights.
This is confusing.
I'm also a little confused by the name... the Panamera.
Porsche says it's named after the Carrera Panamericana,
the mexican road race in the '50s.
But the race only lasted three years after numerous fatalities.
They do not mention that in the brochure.
So it's not pretty, it's got a dumb name,
and a dashboard that would baffle even nasa,
but not everything about the Panamera is a fail.
Now, one of the C.E.O.S said
he wanted to be able to sit in the backseat in total comfort.
And he's 6'3", just like me.
Porsche put bucket seats in the back,
that are similar to the front seats of the 911.
There's plenty of legroom,
and the synthetic suede headliner has a bubble
that gives the backseat an incredible amount of space.
Having a big backseat is important in any car,
but is it worth the sacrifice when it looks like an eggplant?
But when you drive it...
It feels amazing.
Driving this thing in sport mode
is like holding onto a missile.
I mean, this is a sports car.
So what if it's got two extra doors?
When you're looking this way, you won't even notice.
The Panamera turbo has a massive 4.8-liter twin-turbo V-8 engine,
borrowed from the Cayenne turbo S. U.V.,
that delivers a whiplash-inducing 500 horsepower.
And weighing over 4,300 pounds,
it needs as much power as it can squeeze out
to maintain its sportiness.
This sedan could do zero to 60 in 1,
2,
3.8 seconds.
That's faster than the Aston Martin dbs.
This isn't just quick for a sedan.
This is just quick, period.
But even if it accelerates like a Porsche,
there's no way it handles like one, right?
Wrong.
The handling on this car completely matches the power.
It is so tight and so precise yet completely forgiving when you need it.
And with the all-wheel drive, you just point and shoot
and it goes wherever you want.
Oh. Wing is out.
I feel like I'm having an out-of-body driving experience.
I mean, I know I'm driving a four-door, but it feels like a sports car.
Much of the body is built from aluminum,
to reduce weight and improve fuel economy.
It's nice to see that Porsche's at least striving to go green.
But sometimes you can take things a little too far.
Now, here's something strange.
It's called the start-stop system.
Let's say I'm driving in traffic and I come up to a light.
So I stop as normal.
But then the car dies.
But that's not a problem.
It's designed to do that to save gas, and it works.
All I have to do... take my foot off the break,
the car fires right back up, and take off.
Did I mention it has launch control?
Check this out.
Come to a complete stop.
First, you put it in sport.
Then you put it in sport plus.
Put your left foot on the break,
bring the rpms up to 5 grand,
wait till it says "launch control activated,"
and hold on.
Holy moly!
Man, I think the front end left the ground.
100.
110.
112.
122.
130.
139.
150.
158.
164, 166, 167!
And I'm running out of room.
167 miles an hour in a four-door.
Thank you, lord.
The Panamera might not conform to what you would expect from a Porsche,
but I don't think old Ferdinand will be turning in his grave just yet.
So, you liked it?
You know what? It's pretty good.
Now, this is the top-of-the-line turbo model,
which is a little bit pricey at 134 grand,
but you can get a base-model Panamera for 74 grand,
which is a pretty good deal considering you do get a Porsche sports car
and an everyday grocery-getter.
I still wouldn't buy one.
I mean, are they really claiming that this is a potential track car
that you can play with, like, on the weekends?
They really think so.
It's got launch control. It's also got a lap timer.
I mean, they are serious about this car.
It's unbelievable, but there's only one way to really find out.
And that is at the hands of our silent racing driver.
So take it away, Stig.
All right, on the line, activating the launch control.
Out of the hole extremely quick for such a heavy car...
Zero to 60 in under 4 seconds.
Really amazing as it goes into turn 1,
going into the chicane.
This is one of the tighter sections of the track.
Stig just bored inside, really, I think...
Comfortable, upset that he's got to drive such a big behemoth.
Into the teardrop... tightest section of the track.
When you do get 500 horsepower on this corner,
it can be difficult to stay tidy.
A little bit of wheelspin on the way out of that one,
but amazingly just picks up the speed, really gets out of its own way...
130 miles an hour on the back straightaway here.
Now the Stig's starting to get a little bit excited,
goes through the bumpy corners.
The Panamera absorbs it absolutely with no drama.
Into cameraman's corner, tires squealing,
complaining that they have to work with 4,300 pounds.
Coming into the s's,
making his way quickly towards the last turn,
looking like he's getting a little bit out of shape here.
A little bit of opposite lock,
fighting his way into the last corner, and across the line.
Wow.
I have to say,
it looked a lot quicker than I thought it would.
Yeah. For something that big, he was cooking.
Coming out of the corners is where it looks most impressive.
And putting the power down, even when it's sliding,
it looks like it picks up speed quickly.
I would call this a GT car.
And, really, to give you an idea of where the GT cars land,
we've got a V-12 vantage,
with quite a bit of a horsepower advantage at a 1:28.2.
I'm getting a little bit optimistic.
The Mercedes sls with a 1:27.6.
You think it was quicker than a mercedes?
All: No.
Not a chance, right? No.
The Panamera did a 1:25.3.
Wow.
That's faster than a lambo.
That's faster than a balboni.
1:25.3.
I am absolutely shocked at that, to be honest with you.
I can hardly believe it.
Wow.
I mean, I know a lot of people would agree
that, in their mind, a Porsche only has two doors.
And I'm one of those people.
But you got to admit, that is a fast sports car that they built,
and it's got four doors.
Coming up next, the answer to a classic question...
Is it faster to fly or drive?
Welcome back to "Top Gear."
Now it's time to answer a classic question...
What is the fastest way to travel across this country?
If you're going coast to coast, of course, it's to fly.
But what if your destination is only 500 miles away?
Is it faster to fly or drive?
It really is a dilemma we've all been faced with at some point.
For example, if you're going from chicago to detroit.
Let's say you're in new york.
Is it faster to fly or drive to dc?
Or you're in talladega and you need to get to bristol.
Or the classic for us...
How many of you have driven from L.A. to vegas?
And how many of you have flown?
Okay, so, I mean, it really is a question...
Which is quicker, L.A. to vegas, flying or driving?
To find the answer, tanner and I were told to pack our things
and meet in hollywood.
- Mr. Rutledge. - Hey, Tanner!
- How you doing? - Good, man. How you doing?
- This place is awesome, huh? - Yeah, it's incredible.
Wood: Grauman's chinese theater on hollywood boulevard.
This would be the starting point of our race.
The producers had given us two envelopes...
One marked "fly" and one marked "drive."
I'll drive.
Great. I will fly and whup you.
When does it say that we actually start?
Uh, it says now.
So I guess...
All right.
Probably should figure out what we're looking for here
before we get going.
Ferrari key... that's a good sign...
And a parking ticket.
Foust: I had to find my car in the parking garage,
hit the freeway,
drive the 272 miles across the desert to Las Vegas,
and beat rutledge to the finish line
at the fontana bar in the bellagio hotel on the strip.
"southwest airlines flight coupon."
I had to go 12 miles to L.A.X.,
fly 231 miles to Las Vegas,
then go the 21/2 miles from the vegas airport to the strip.
Hey, man, have you seen a limo around here waiting for me?
No limo?
Hollywood highland center parking garage.
It's right down here.
Taxi. Do they have taxis here?
Taxi.
I heard a honk.
Nice!
Wow. This is beautiful.
This is the Ferrari California...
Zero to 60 in under 4 seconds
and a top speed of 193 miles per hour.
This grand tourer is the first front-engine V-8 Ferrari ever.
It's a car designed for this race.
Wow. My driver's license is not gonna make it through the next two hours.
Two turns from the parking garage, and I was on the freeway on-ramp.
Oh, yeah!
The shifting is ridiculous.
Finally. There we go.
After 10 minutes, my cab finally arrived.
Next stop... L.A.X., just 12 miles away.
Foust: Oh, my gosh! The transmission on this car... is unbelievable.
It's the dual clutch that actually slips the current gear,
then engages the next one before releasing the first clutch.
What it means is instantaneous shifts.
It's awesome.
20 minutes had gone by,
and I hit the infamous L.A. traffic.
Seem to be a lot of places to buy weed here, a lot of marijuana places.
Man: Oh, yeah.
- California sure is different, isn't it? - Everything is different in California.
Man! Who would have thought?
I need to go east here.
Uh-oh. This is going the wrong way.
I was so mesmerized by the smooth shifting,
I missed my exit.
This is not a good start right now.
Oh, come on. There is no way she can pull that off.
Come on... those pants.
That's way over... that's way...
Oh, come on.
Even I wouldn't wear that.
- Hey, Tanner. What's up? - Rutledge.
So, what kind of car do you have?
Ferrari california.
Isn't that the kind of girly, like, Miata one?
No. It is the manly, incredibly masculine,
huge, broad-shouldered, hairy-chested Ferrari.
The irony of the Ferrari California is that it represents
everything the company's founder, Enzo Ferrari, hated.
The only reason he sold sports cars was to fund his racing team.
Enzo is quoted as being a bit disgusted with his customers
that bought the street cars.
He thought they bought them for the prestige of owning a Ferrari,
not for the performance and the race heritage of the car.
We finally got to the airport.
We'd gone 12 miles in 45 minutes.
That's an average speed of 16 miles per hour.
I'm sure Tanner was making better time.
We're gonna cut this a little close.
I was somewhere around barstow on the edge of the desert
When I finally lost all traces of civilization.
A hundred miles behind me was the traffic of L.A.,
ahead the mojave beckoned my california into its vastness.
The California shape was created
by the legendary design company Pininfarina.
But some people, like Rutledge, have complained that it's too shapely,
too feminine for the famous prancing horse.
But there's a reason for all those curves.
Ferrari spent over a thousand hours in the wind tunnel
to make this their most aerodynamic car ever.
And this is probably the perfect desert road-trip car.
It's slippery as can be, it just rips through the air,
and a hundred miles an hour is, like, absolutely nothing.
- Do you have your I.D. With you? - Yes, ma'am.
I got to warn you... it's a pretty good picture.
You may want to keep it.
All right, I've got 179 miles to go.
Rutledge is almost certainly sitting on the airplane right now.
If there was ever a time in history for divine intervention,
it's right now.
The flight's delayed till 2:55.
Okay. What time does that put me there?
It gets you there at 4:05.
Wow. Okay.
Woman: Incoming call.
Foust: Yeah, so, I guess that means that you're not in the air.
Oh, no, no. We're... we are on the plane.
We are just about to take off.
You know, it sounds kind of like you're in the terminal.
It doesn't sound like you're in the actual airplane right now.
Uh, my flight's been delayed by just a couple... two or three minutes.
How long's the delay?
What time do they think you're gonna get in the plane?
We're gonna leave at 2:55.
So we'll be there at like ...
The fact of the matter is, in the U.S., domestic air travel is...
It's just like hopping on a bus.
They pack you in like cattle, like these guys right in here.
That guy's like a modern-day airplane pilot, right there.
Even with the delay, I knew that once we took off,
I'd be jetting past tanner at over 500 miles per hour.
The Ferrari is quick, but I was about to hit the mother of all fast lanes,
And Tanner would be doomed.
Howa are you? You have a beautiful scarf.
Uh-oh. Fuel light is officially on.
Incoming call.
Hello?
Hey, Tanner.
How's it going, man?
Well, I don't know if you just heard that beep in the beginning,
but that's my fuel light.
And I've got 32 miles of fuel
and 36 miles of highway before the next fuel station.
Oh, this is awesome.
That's the best news I've heard all day.
We're actually very close to death valley,
where it could be 138 degrees in the shade.
This is not what I had in mind
when I picked the Ferrari key out of the envelope.
I'll tell you that.
I've read that if you follow semitrucks, you can add 40% to your mileage.
It's like drafting in nascar.
Oh, I can feel it pulling me, actually.
It's kind of nice. I don't even need to really accelerate at all.
Wood: Now, we're on the boeing 737. This costs $65 million brand-new.
Plus, we've got a range of 3,500 miles.
The downside of that... It costs almost $15,000 to fill the bad boy up.
A little bit of a trade-off, but we know 544 miles an hour top speed,
and that's impossible to beat on the ground.
Foust: Coming up, who will win the fight
between plane and car in the race to vegas?
There's the strip!
We had set out to solve the debate once and for all.
As it faster to fly or drive from los angeles to vegas?
I had the Ferrari California and 150 miles in my rearview mirror.
Rutledge was flying commercial and had just left L.A.
But even though I was in the lead, things were not all good.
Because I had no gas left,
I resorted to desperate measures...
Drafting my Ferrari behind a big rig.
After 15 miles crawling behind the semi, it suddenly hit me.
I was hypermiling a freakin' Ferrari.
Foust: Ah.
Enzo would haunt me, spit in my face.
I'd rather walk in the desert than drive 62 miles an hour in a straight line all day.
And then I spotted a gas station that wasn't on my gps.
Lady luck was back on my side.
What?
No!
Abandonned.
- Christine: Here you go. - Oh, boy.
- Mmm! Yummy. - Thank you.
I'll even spoil it and open it for you.
Oh, you are the best, christine. Thank you.
Ahh!
I was driving on fumes when I finally crawled into baker.
Foust: We did it.
We did it. Yes!
This had to be a high-speed pit stop.
I knew Rutledge was up there somewhere, filling his greasy beard with pretzel crumbs.
I wonder if Tanner made it to the gas station.
I was back on the highway with just 80 miles to go.
Up above, Rutledge was surely jetting ahead of me.
It was time to get this California out of California.
Foust: All right, I'm gonna call Rutledge.
If it rings... Well, I'm screwed.
That means he's on the ground.
If it goes straight to voicemail,
that means he's still in the air and we've got a shot.
Hello, and thank you for calling Abe Froeman,
the sausage king of chicago.
So leave me a message.
I think that answers a lot, actually.
Pilot: Ladies and gentlemen, we have begun our descent into Las Vegas.
Please bring your seat backs and tray tables
to their upright and locked position.
Foust: We are in the state of nevada, and no sign of Rutledge.
Now, this is the real trouble part of the trip.
See, right now I got to wait for everybody to get off.
So for every minute that I stand here...
If we figure Tanner's going 75 miles an hour,
then that is...
Let's say Tanner's going 60 miles an hour.
Then we know for every minute that I stand here,
he's going 1 mile.
Come on, bag. Come on.
Sucker's burning.
Oh. There's my bag.
Incoming call.
- Foust: Hello? - Tanner.
Rutledge, I don't hear any slot machines in the background.
- Where are you? - I am in Vegas,
I'm holding my bag, and I'm in line for a taxi, my friend.
You better step on it.
Can you see the strip?
Yes.
Rutledge was just 21/2 miles away from the bellagio,
and I was still 25 miles away.
Damn it.
Pedal to the metal.
How quick can you get us to the bellagio?
Man: About 10 or 12 minutes, I think.
10 or 12 would be great.
There is the airport on the right.
Has anyone seen a little tom cruise in a girly Ferrari?
Plaid shirt...
Real good hygiene.
There's the strip!
No way I am losing this right now.
There's a taxi three cars ahead of me.
That could be him. I've got to catch that taxi.
Is this a three-cylinder?
- I think it's a six-cylinder. - Oh, a six.
I'm ready to feel that fury of six angry cylinders.
I tell you what.
267 miles down, 3 to go,
straight down the vegas strip.
How far do you think we are from the bellagio?
We're almost there. We got about... it's the third stoplight up here.
Come on!
Three stoplights stand between victory and myself.
Oh, man. We are one traffic light away from the bellagio.
The fountains are waving.
They're saying, "you won, Rutledge. Get in here."
Foust: All right, there's the bellagio. We're looking for the north valet.
Wood: Man, I hope we won.
Come on.
Here we are... the bellagio, Las Vegas.
Stay to the right.
Follow the wall on your left,
until you get to it on the right.
All right, I think we've lost our way a little bit.
You guys smell that?
It smells like victory.
Over here.
Nope. This way.
I didn't see the Ferrari out front.
I think we might have won.
Oh, man.
Tanner?
Oh, yes!
[ laughing ] Oh!
Oh, that's awful!
- Oh, you're not serious! - I got you an appletini, dude.
How long have you been here?
Days.
No, about four minutes, actually.
Damn it!
You know, when you fly in the air... delay.
It could have been way... 50 minutes is nothing.
- How long was your delay? - 50 minutes.
Man.
- That's a risk you pay. - It really is.
You know, there are some benefits to winning.
- Oh, really? Like what? - Yeah. Watch this.
How did you do that?
Those hands... they're magic.
You see? That's why flying is too stressful for me.
*** Grabbed a beer, and slid down the slide.
I mean, I would have beat him if my plane hadn't been delayed.
That's the problem with flying, my friend.
I mean, when's the last time you've had somebody say,
"I was late because there was a problem with the landing gear on my car"?
- Doesn't happen. - Did you like the Ferrari?
I did. You know, at first, I was a little skeptical...
I mean, a V-8 where you really want a V-12.
But the harder you drove it,
the more the racing heritage of Ferrari came to the surface.
But all that really matters is that we learned one thing...
If you want to get to vegas from L.A., take a Ferrari.
Nice real-world advice for everybody here.
Thank you, Tanner foust.
Coming up, a real-life monster of rock in our suzuki sx4.
All right.
Now it's time to put a big star in our small car.
Please help me welcome rock legend, tv star...
And his new show is called "life as I know it"...
Mr. Bret Michaels!
Whoo! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Thank you, everybody.
- How are you doing? - Good to see you, my brother.
Man.
- Whoo! I'm fired up right now. - You're fired up. Thank god.
Good to see you, my friend. Good to see you.
- It is good to be alive. - I was gonna ask you.
Listen, today... you know, listen, I say this...
All the organs are here, everything's working right now,
everything's functioning.
He made it.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
First of all, let me ask you about your new show, "life as I know it."
Real easy... it's a combination of everything that is my life.
And it shows the balance between my love that I have for my daughters
and my love and passion of being on the road
and trying to make both worlds work.
Cool. Now, do you ever run into...
Being who you are and your past...
When you have to be dad to your daughters,
and you go, "don't do that!" and they go, "dad,"
and then show one of your old videos or something?
It happens all the time.
What happens is... at our house,
we have a go-kart track there, so I'm teaching my kids to ride,
and, you know, we do all this stuff, and they got the little atvs.
The other day, they have all the friends over,
and they're going way too fast for what they should be doing.
And I said, "hey, you've got to slow down!"
And I go, "oh, my god. I've officially become my father."
You weren't, like, in boxer shorts and black socks.
I was. That's exactly what I was in.
With the things that hold the black socks up.
"slow down!" "you wrecked a Ferrari."
"I know what I'm doing!"
I do have your car list here, and it is extensive.
We only picked out a few. Well, the first one was the ford galaxy.
Now, did you buy that one from your father?
200 bucks. It was the olive-green.
You know, it was sort of the... not forest,
the olive-greenish with the black vinyl top.
It was a lady-killer.
You pulled up in that, and you knocked them out.
- If you ran them over. - Yes.
And then you... harleys, of course.
You're a big bike guy, so you had the harleys.
And when you got a little bit of money, you bought a Porsche.
What was the first Porsche you bought?
The first Porsche I got was the 944, not the 924.
It was the 944.
And, unfortunately, I hate to say this...
It just... I didn't have much luck with it.
I bought it used, and it was a disaster for me.
I ended up... this is no lie.
It broke down on me at a gas station in hollywood.
And I left it there, and they collected it for $500.
You know, they come and tow it away for $500.
Unfortunately for me, that particular Porsche I should have investigated a little more.
It wasn't the best-running car.
So, now what do you drive... oh!
This I wanted to ask you, 'cause I remember this.
I remember reading about this.
Poison actually had a nascar, right?
What year... it was like 2000...
I want to say 2002.
- 2002. - 2002.
Derrike cope was driving it. And I'm a big nascar fan.
And we wanted to get in, sponsor the car.
It's a lot of fun, very expensive.
You know, but we love doing it.
We had some good luck. And what was killer...
The best tv time we got out of it is when it blew the engine.
It was on fire at the pocono 500, and it looked great.
You know what I mean? They just stuck on the hood of the car,
- and it was quite an experience. - Well, that's the way you go out,
just burning in flames.
And I have to ask you, what did you think
of that monster suzuki sx4 we have for you?
Honestly, I was so pumped up
to get out there and drive around that track,
and it really was... it actually handled great.
I got in there, and I was way too excited, man.
My heart was pounding.
- But you had fun? - I had a blast.
That's all that counts. You guys want to see his lap?
Uh-oh.
There's the beast.
You launched that. That was very quick.
Can't they speed this up to make me look fast?
We're coming into turn 1, and no brakes at all.
Too sharp.
Okay, this is the chicane.
Very tightly through there, my friend.
You're coming into the teardrop.
This is the slowest part of the track.
- And I'm proving right here. - Yes, you are.
I thought I was going a lot faster than that, in my mind.
No, you're actually... that's pretty quick into that turn.
[bleep] Me.
[bleep] [bleep]
I missed the gear right there is what happened.
I've got all my excuses lined up, just so you know.
This is the backstretch.
This is the fastest part of the track.
I got a lot of speed... and no control right now.
Which could be suzuki's marketing slogan.
Exactly.
That's pretty aggressive. Now you're coming up into cameraman's curve right up here.
Yeah, they all stepped back.
[bleep] Me.
- That's gonna be my legacy right there. - That's perfect.
We're getting bumper stickers.
Yeah, I forgot everything the stig taught me is gone at this point.
U're driving like a rock star.
I'm only half stoned here. That's the problem.
Slap it down into second.
All right, this is the final curve... last corner.
And you are across the line.
Thank you.
That was real impressive.
Thank you.
Where do you think you came on this board?
Listen, I want to win, so I'm hoping I'm above tony.
- Okay. - But I'm feeling it wasn't my finest,
so I'm gonna say just under tim allen.
Just under tim allen. Okay.
I have your time here, and you did it in 1...
40...
4...
Oh!
Point...
4.
Aw, man!
You're right where you said you were gonna be.
- Thank you. Thank you. - 1:44.4.
Do you know the beatdown I'm gonna take from kid rock?
Yeah... You did a great job.
- Thank you for having me. - You are our final guest.
And we usually don't do this, but you are the final guest of the season.
So here at "Top Gear,"
we want to give you a special prize for coming out here.
- This is the only gift we have given... - It's a bowling ball?
Nope. This is bret michael's "Top Gear" helmet.
Thank you.
That is for you, my friend.
Dude, that is... Thank you, everybody.
Bret Michaels!
It's a trophy.
Good times.
Coming up, Tanner gets confused by a bmw.
Welcome back to "Top Gear."
And now it's time for Tanner to test a strange german mutant.
Foust: In "frankenstein," a tortured scientist
brings a spark of life to an odd collection
of human and animal parts.
The result was a larger, more-powerful version of a human being,
although, by most accounts, very ugly.
Many car companies work the same way...
A chassis here, an engine here.
And then they create something bigger and more powerful.
But is it better?
This is the BMW x6m.
"m" stands for "motorsport,"
and they're responsible for creating the m3,
the m5, and the m6.
They don't have much imagination when naming cars,
but they sure know how to make them go fast.
Like dr. Frankenstein,
the m-division scientists went into their lab,
sliced the top half off an x5,
stirred in a potent twin-turbo V-8,
and grafted on the swoopy greenhouse from the 5 series gt.
Add some angry spark plugs, and you have the x6m.
Honestly, driving this car feels like you're driving a sports car,
except you're sitting on the ski rack.
There's just something wrong
about being so high in the air and having so much performance.
The x6m runs about $90,000...
Which is 22 grand more than the regular x6.
Load up all the options, and you can drop $105,000.
This car is deceptively huge on the outside,
but on the inside, it's tiny.
The x6 has almost an identical layout to the x5,
BMW's luxury S.U.V.,
with all that pesky practicality and backseat room.
Now, the dash is shared with the x5, so it's a pretty nice place to be,
but there are some kind of quirky bits...
For example, the transmission.
The shifter is almost like a playstation joystick.
You go down for drive and up for neutral,
up again for reverse.
And if you want to do manual-shift mode,
you kick it over to the left, and then it's reversed.
If you want to go down, you go up.
And if you want to go up, you go down.
One interesting thing...
You'd expect a car for $90,000 to have an auto setting on the climate control.
This has three... soft, medium,
and... I couldn't make this up... intensive.
To shake down a machine like the x6m,
it needed some room to run.
So I took it to the track.
Miles of open asphalt, just begging for rubber.
Now, the regular x6 was already ridiculously fast.
It surprised us with a twin-turbo V-8 making 400 horsepower.
But that didn't stop somebody at the m-division of BMW
from saying, "you know what?
I bet we can make this weird little thing even faster."
So they bolted on two dump-truck-sized turbos
and replaced the fuel injectors with fire hoses.
Mix all that fuel with this dry desert air
and 555 horses lay waiting beneath your right foot.
This will do zero to 60 in under 4 seconds.
That's faster than a Porsche 911 gt3.
For a car that weighs 2,000 pounds more,
it almost defies physics.
But the real magic with this machine isn't its straight-line speed.
It's that it...
Handles really, really well.
It actually can pull more g's on the skid pad than an m5 or an m6.
It's incredible.
Good things happen when I push this little "m" button,
which might as well stand for "magic."
The suspension gets a little stiffer, the steering gets more responsive.
The dynamic stability control lets me slide a little bit more.
It basically lets me live up my destiny as a BMW owner
and drive like an absolute prick.
If you turn off the "m" button,
instantaneously, the ride gets a little bit softer,
the steering gets a little squishier.
Why would anybody want to do that?
Like the frankenstein monster, the x6m is a beast...
A bigger, more powerful version of its predecessors.
But the frankenstein monster was tortured
because he didn't know who or what he was.
The x6m struggles with that same identity crisis.
Is it a crossover? Definitely not.
A crossover was designed to be a lighter,
more fuel-efficient version of an S.U.V.
This thing has the mass of a battleship,
and if you drive it the way that it wants to be driven,
it gets about 9 miles to the gallon.
And that's not a joke.
So is it an S.U.V.?
No.
Remember, the "u" is for "utility."
This thing has tiny rear seats, a roofline that is so low
that you have to bend over double just to get in.
It's really not a very useful car.
But is it a sports car, then?
It sure drives like one.
But sports cars are designed to work in concert with the laws of physics.
The x6m seems to go fast in spite of them.
It just goes down the road, flipping the bird at the natural world.
I am completely blown away by it,
but I still can't figure out what to call it.
So, you like it, even though you don't know what to call it.
It's just flat-out confusing.
What would you call this thing?
A monster car.
All right. All right. I got one.
How about a fastback utility?
An F.U. That's a good idea.
No, I was thinking a sport utility coupe.
The S.U.C.
You want to label this a "suck"?
Right?
Okay, how about this? A fastback utility coupe.
All right. I think it's probably time to put this machine,
whatever it's called, to the test,
and put it in the hands of our silent racing driver.
So take it away, stig.
All right, off the line,
there is no denying the x6m is an absolute torque monster,
twin turbos cranking up.
Stig not wasting any time around the first corner and into the chicane.
Kind of is strangely comfortable.
Really, no body-roll to speak of,
even with it sitting so high up off the ground.
Stig not impressed.
As he comes through the teardrop...
Four-wheel spin as he claws his way out of there.
Huge amount of acceleration onto the straightaway.
It may be big, it may be a little bit ugly,
but it's doing 130 miles an hour on our track right now.
Whoa! He is throwing it through the course.
Now he's starting to get excited.
Working the paddles a little bit as he cranks it out
of cameraman's corner and into the s's...
Another very challenging part of the track.
Wow. He is pushing it hard. Coming into the last corner.
This could actually be a respectable time.
And across the line he goes.
It looked actually really good, didn't it?
But earlier, the stig actually saw the Ferrari California...
You remember, the one that we raced to vegas,
that completely smoked you actually to vegas...
And he got ahold of the keys, and he did a lap on that one.
And it actually turned in a very impressive time...
The Ferrari California... of a 128.5,
really quite an impressive time. Yes. Round of applause for that.
Pretty incredible, but with such a quick board,
it's even at the bottom of the board almost.
Of course, the BMW's not gonna be quite that fast,
but ultimately really respectable with a 1:30.0.
From the big beast... really amazing.
Pretty good.
- A pretty big machine. - Yeah, for something this tall and heavy,
that's an impressive time, even if you don't know what to call it.
It really is staggering.
You could see how hard he was throwing it.
And, yeah, it's impressive because we've got a serious lineup
of performance cars up there.
Okay. Okay. How about this?
A sport hatchback injected turbo?
Okay. I think that's all we have time for tonight.
Thank you for watching. Goodbye.
Synch by Benfo, corrected by testexam www.addic7ed.com