The Crank: Why I hate (some) Old Fart cars

By John LeBlanc MONTEREY, Calif. – Cars as art? No problem. I can appreciate the past as rolling sculpture as well as anyone else. I never really understood the fascination with driving old cars, though, at least for the cars I’ve owned or driven in the past. They’ve always been more fragile, unreliable, slower, or […]

UPDATED/B-ROLL: “Fastest road-going Porsche of all time” revealed

By John LeBlanc Think about it: Of all the legendary road cars Germany’s preeminent sports car maker has already produced, that headline is a strong statement. But the new $297,000  911 GT2 RS that goes on sale in Canada in October—what will presumably be the highest-performing 997 until the next generation starts arriving in the […]

The Crank: Can “sports car” and “diesel” ever be in the same sentence?

By John LeBlanc INGOLSTADT, Germany – It’s dawn, June, 2006. I’m watching the sun come up over the Porsche Corners during the running of the 24 Heures du Mans. And I’m witnessing history. On the way to becoming the first ever diesel-engine race car to win the historic event, Audi’s R10 swooshes by in relative […]

Stuff: R8 V10 grabs World Performance Car honours

By John LeBlanc NEW YORK – Kicking off the second media day of this year’s New York show, the Audi R8 V10 was declared the 2010 World Performance Car from a short list that included the Ferrari California and the Porsche 911 GT3.

Road Trip: 2010 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG down Mexico way

[svgallery name=”2010_MB_SLS_hirez”] By John LeBlanc OAXACA, Mexico—Before I was handed the keys to a shiny new Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG “super” sports cars, officials from the German automaker warned me that driving here would be different. Especially given that our planned route was a section of Mexico’s historic La Carrera Panamericana road race, an event the […]

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