On this episode of Tire Rack’s Head 2 Head
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MotorTranscript
00:00 Hi there, I'm Johnny Lieberman.
00:02 And I am freezing.
00:04 And do we have a head-to-head for you today?
00:06 If Jason would get out of the dang car.
00:08 No, I'm in short sleeves.
00:10 I'm not prepared for this weather.
00:12 That's not my problem, Frosty. Come on.
00:14 We live in California. You're like, "Hey, follow me to the track."
00:16 You neglected to mention that the track
00:18 was at the Bridgestone Winter Driving School.
00:20 And you are the one who happily
00:22 followed me up to 7,000 feet
00:24 in Steamboat Springs in the dead of winter.
00:26 What did you expect? Come on.
00:28 Fine.
00:30 This is the Porsche Macan GTS.
00:32 And it makes 360 horsepower
00:34 from its twin-turbo
00:36 3-liter V6.
00:38 And this
00:40 is the Jaguar
00:42 F-Pace S that makes
00:44 380 horsepower from its
00:46 supercharged 3-liter V6.
00:48 But which one's the better snowmobile?
00:50 There's only one way to find out.
00:52 [Music]
01:14 [Music]
01:28 [Laughter]
01:30 Uh, doing better there, Mumbles?
01:32 A little bit warmer.
01:34 I'll be better when I'm finally sideways in one of those things.
01:36 Oh, shocker!
01:38 You want to go drifting?
01:40 Oh, let me guess. You're going to want to line them up in a straight line and do a drag race, right?
01:42 What a brilliant idea.
01:44 Okay.
01:48 Here we are lined up.
01:50 I got 380 horsepower
01:52 and a supercharger, so no lag
01:54 at elevation. You're toast.
01:56 Uh, I have a dual-clutch
01:58 automatic with launch control, and as long as
02:00 the system can figure out it's on
02:02 snow and not dry pavement, you're toast.
02:04 Okay, well, actually, I'm in
02:06 sport mode and I have everything turned off because
02:08 I think I can beat launch control.
02:10 But you count it down. Let's see what happens.
02:12 Okay, on go. Ready?
02:14 3, 2, 1, go.
02:16 [Music]
02:40 Oh, my God.
02:42 That was stupid.
02:44 Apparently, I actually beat launch control,
02:46 but then about halfway down,
02:48 the Porsche just pulled away. But,
02:50 I don't think that's very realistic. I don't think people own cars
02:52 like this. I don't think they're using launch control.
02:54 I don't think they're turning stability and
02:56 traction control all the way off. So,
02:58 what I propose is, I actually
03:00 have a low-friction launch.
03:02 Ooh, fancy.
03:04 I have a low-friction mode called
03:06 stability control on, so I'm going to channel
03:08 the people who drive this
03:10 car and just leave everything on.
03:12 Channeling your inner soccer mom is what you're saying.
03:14 I'll see you at the PTA meeting,
03:16 Margaret.
03:18 Not if I stab you to death in the parking lot,
03:20 Brittany. Okay, then.
03:22 Go on 3. 3, 2, 1, go.
03:24 [Music]
03:26 That was bad cheating. You should be ashamed
03:28 of yourself. And, uh,
03:30 that low-friction launch is a very slow
03:32 way to launch a car.
03:34 I am ashamed
03:36 of myself all the way through the finish line
03:38 with 35 car lengths ahead of you.
03:40 I count 10, but
03:42 okay, fine.
03:44 [Music]
03:46 [Music]
03:48 Okay,
03:50 so A, Porsche stability control is really
03:52 good in a straight line. B, I won both
03:54 races, and C, that was really stupid.
03:56 Wow, the quicker car is quicker in a
03:58 straight line. Imagine that. I mean, drag
04:00 races are dumb. You could just look up the specs and save yourself
04:02 the gas. Fair enough. But, we should probably
04:04 look at the real use case
04:06 for Porsches and Jaguars. High performance SUVs.
04:08 Oh, I agree. Absolutely. Right.
04:10 So, we need to go get groceries. What?
04:12 These are grocery getters. So, on the other
04:14 side of this 13-turn-long, one-mile
04:16 ice race course is a shopping
04:18 cart full of groceries. Oh, no.
04:20 Oh, yes. And all you
04:22 have to do is get there as fast as you
04:24 possibly can, load the groceries into your
04:26 grocery getter, and the first person that
04:28 crosses the start/finish line wins.
04:30 That's it? Yep. You know, as far as
04:32 your stupid ideas go,
04:34 this one isn't that dumb because
04:36 at the very least, I might get some lunch.
04:38 Alright, let's do it.
04:40 Okay, so I think he's got a little bit
04:46 more grip, but I think I have
04:48 a secret strategy. We'll see if it works.
04:50 I'm also going to open my sunroof a little bit
04:52 here because it's kind of stuffy.
04:54 Which also might be my secret strategy.
04:56 Okay, you ready?
04:58 Okay, I'm going to count down from three, and we're going to
05:00 go on "go." No launch control. Going to go easy.
05:02 Okay. Three,
05:04 two, one, go!
05:06 Say bye.
05:10 Yeah, that thing
05:12 just launches a lot better.
05:14 Alright, in the lead
05:16 to the first corner. Super tricky.
05:18 He's right on me.
05:20 Oh yeah. Style points
05:22 and speed.
05:24 Steer with throttle.
05:30 Oh!
05:32 That launch has doomed me.
05:36 But I guess the other thing
05:38 is I really don't care.
05:40 Oh!
05:42 [laughs]
05:44 It's a lot of fun.
05:46 Drifty, drifty, drifty, drifty.
05:52 Drifty, drifty, drifty, drifty.
05:54 No chance. I got all
05:56 the grip.
05:58 [laughs]
06:00 By all the grip, I mean I got none of the grip.
06:02 This track's pretty damn good.
06:06 Beautiful.
06:12 Alright, I'm going to back right up to the Wheaties.
06:14 Well, I may be backing right up to that wall in a second.
06:16 Dude!
06:18 There we go, into reverse.
06:20 I can't see anything out the back.
06:22 I'll probably just hit the shopping cart.
06:24 [laughs]
06:26 Where is the button?
06:28 There's always a button.
06:30 Button, button, button, button.
06:32 Stupidest place in the world for it.
06:34 God, this elevation sucks.
06:40 Damn.
06:42 Get back in. Get back in.
06:44 Alright.
06:46 Thank God it will not take the emergency brake off
06:48 until I put my seatbelt on.
06:50 I wonder if I got a seatbelt on.
06:52 See you, bye.
06:54 [laughs]
06:56 Screaming engines!
06:58 [engine revving]
07:00 Can't breathe.
07:04 This pressure shoving is a lot of work.
07:06 I'm ahead of him and that's all I can do.
07:10 And I'm in the
07:12 home stretch. Red line, second gear.
07:14 And through!
07:16 [laughs]
07:18 I may stop by the
07:20 next county.
07:22 And the finish line.
07:24 Not too bad.
07:26 Couple things.
07:32 One, the hell is that?
07:34 Two, I won.
07:36 Three, you cheated, but I won anyway.
07:38 And come on, you were supposed to take all 15 of those.
07:40 Eh, 15.
07:42 All of them.
07:44 Look, first of all, no one needs 15 boxes of Wheaties.
07:46 Clearly you're not a mother.
07:48 Obviously. And obviously you're upset
07:50 that I didn't follow your rules.
07:52 But to make you feel better, let's go drifting.
07:54 Okay. Makes everything better.
07:56 Okay, you ready there, my frozen princess?
08:02 Yes, I am. Drift it up!
08:04 [engine revving]
08:06 Alright. A lot of fresh snow.
08:10 Steering wheel mounted shifters are impossible.
08:12 What's cool about that Macan is
08:14 if you leave it in first gear,
08:16 you can defeat the lag and you can
08:18 just kick the rear sideways.
08:20 And that's what's so fun about doing this
08:22 is that you really do learn how to steer with throttle.
08:24 There's a handy little indicator
08:26 that shows me how much torque
08:28 is going to the front wheels. The thing is, I don't need it
08:30 because I know it's too much.
08:32 This car is constantly trying to pull itself straight.
08:34 I just wish the all-wheel drive system
08:36 wanted to be sideways as much as I do.
08:38 It's not like going wild.
08:40 It's not sliding crazy.
08:42 It just sort of does its thing
08:44 in a very methodical, controlled,
08:46 one might say, Porsche manner.
08:48 The guys at Bridgestone said
08:50 they designed this course to be diabolical
08:52 and I think that was being nice to it.
08:54 My God, brutal!
08:56 There is no chance of doing a complete lap sideways,
08:58 but I'm going to try.
09:00 If you ever get a chance to come to a winter
09:02 driving school like this one, do it.
09:04 Alright.
09:06 Want to bring it to a halt there?
09:08 Alright. What do you think?
09:10 Um, I'd give you between an 8
09:12 and an 8.5. It was very sideways,
09:14 but it wasn't super dramatic.
09:16 It was just kind of very calm and controlled.
09:18 Of all of the miserable, horrible,
09:22 terrible things you have ever said to me,
09:24 controlled?
09:26 Controlled!
09:28 Alright, man. My turn. Sorry.
09:30 So I think the Jaguar might be doing better.
09:36 Not John. Definitely not John.
09:38 I'm not doing very good.
09:40 But still, this course is so dramatic.
09:42 It was nice that it was supercharged,
09:44 so it's kind of lag-free.
09:46 It rotates. Nice chassis.
09:48 Great all-wheel drive system.
09:50 I'm freezing. Would you please crash that thing
09:52 or put me out of my misery, please?
09:54 There we go.
09:56 There we go. Look at that.
09:58 Big old drift. Big old drift.
10:00 There we go. Sideways up the hill.
10:02 Keep it going. Keep it going.
10:04 Nice!
10:06 Nice!
10:08 Uh-oh.
10:10 [engine revving]
10:12 Boom.
10:14 [laughs]
10:16 A little crash, but it kept going.
10:18 This knack of always hitting the pedal
10:20 he's not supposed to be hitting.
10:22 You're hurtling towards a snowbank.
10:24 Hit the gas.
10:26 It's perfect sense.
10:28 Okay, well, we can be done. What do you think?
10:30 I think your front right air intake
10:32 is completely stuffed with snow.
10:34 I know I stuffed it down there
10:36 because I drove into a snowbank.
10:38 Because I could see the back end rotate
10:40 every single time you got on throttle,
10:42 which is what the Porsche didn't do
10:44 that drove me crazy, I'm going to give the Jag
10:46 like a 9.275.
10:48 And then I'm going to give you a 4.0
10:50 because, you know, we've got to clean all that snow up now.
10:52 Of course you do.
10:54 Anyways, you want to get the hell out of here
10:56 and go someplace warm like sunny
10:58 southern Utah?
11:00 Yes, please.
11:02 [engine revving]
11:04 [music]
11:06 [music]
11:08 [music]
11:10 [music]
11:12 [music]
11:14 [music]
11:16 [music]
11:18 Man, I've been to 46 of the 50 states
11:20 and Utah is without question
11:22 the prettiest. Pretty?
11:24 You can't see a thing except maybe
11:26 Santa Claus lurking in a bush.
11:28 Listen, you said southern, sunny
11:30 Utah. This is none of those things.
11:32 Yeah, well, you know, as your therapist has been saying,
11:34 you have to stop listening to me.
11:36 [engine revving]
11:38 [music]
11:40 Alright, so, in the Macan
11:42 GTS. Right, and let's talk about
11:44 what makes a GTS, and it's
11:46 a classic Porsche recipe. You take
11:48 the base car and you add in
11:50 a lot of expensive options
11:52 or options from the turbo that you can't get on the base car.
11:54 Mix in 20 more horsepower,
11:56 lower the suspension 10 millimeters,
11:58 black out the headlights, and voila, it's a GTS.
12:00 And the fundamentals
12:02 of this car are Audi Q5.
12:04 But, Porsche did
12:06 four things that fundamentally changed the car
12:08 and mask the fact that it's
12:10 an Audi underneath. Number one, the way
12:12 it looks. There's no hint of Audi
12:14 anywhere inside or out. And that's
12:16 awesome, because it's the same hard points, but
12:18 the sheet metal, completely different. Yep.
12:20 No hint. Second thing is engine.
12:22 But don't confuse the
12:24 3 liter in this with the 3 liter in the Audi.
12:26 First of all, that's supercharged. Second,
12:28 they are not the same engines. The Audi is
12:30 a typical Audi engine. It's a long stroke
12:32 unit. This is a huge
12:34 bore, tiny stroke engine.
12:36 96 millimeter bore,
12:38 69 millimeter stroke. That's
12:40 Ferrari proportions. Right, so it's like a sewing
12:42 machine. Pistons are like little hummingbird
12:44 wings. As opposed to an Audi, which is
12:46 long stroke up and down. Right.
12:48 And the benefits are, this thing is smooth and
12:50 sounds really good. But the negatives are,
12:52 you have no torque whatsoever off boost.
12:54 And, as we've been road tripping,
12:56 this gets much worse gas
12:58 mileage than the Jaguar. And the Jaguar's supercharged.
13:00 With a torque converter. This is a dual clutch.
13:02 Oops. Oh well.
13:04 But it's smooth. The next
13:06 change that they did was to the all wheel drive system.
13:08 So, Quattro works by always
13:10 sending power to the front wheels. It's a front wheel drive
13:12 system. And when the computer wants, it
13:14 can send some of the power to the back.
13:16 And let's point out, Quattro's really good
13:18 at all wheel drive capability. It's great
13:20 for an Audi. Yeah. But a Porsche needs
13:22 to handle differently. So they totally and
13:24 completely reconfigured the drive line.
13:26 And this all wheel drive system always
13:28 sends power to the rear wheels and if it
13:30 wants, can fade power to the front.
13:32 Fundamental change in the way the car
13:34 handles.
13:36 The last thing they did was
13:38 Porsche put that seat
13:40 right behind the steering wheel. Centered.
13:42 What a concept. And lowered it about
13:44 200 feet. To make it a
13:46 more sports car like experience. Exactly.
13:48 Which is totally the opposite of what they should have done
13:50 because that's not what the market wants. People just want
13:52 to sit up high. And you don't in this.
13:54 You just want to go on the floor.
13:56 I like that it fundamentally
13:58 changes the way the car feels versus the
14:00 SQ5. What you were saying is the
14:02 Volkswagen group flexing its muscles
14:04 when it wants to. And I mention that
14:06 because, remember the Bentayga?
14:08 They didn't do a great job going from Q7
14:10 to Bentayga, but they did an outstanding
14:12 job in differentiating the car
14:14 going from Q5 to Macan.
14:16 However, I don't think it's a great
14:18 Porsche. And here's what I mean by that.
14:20 You look at the 911. That's the
14:22 sports car gold standard. And to me
14:24 the Porsche of the small
14:26 SUV world is the AMG
14:28 GLA45. It's more fun to drive.
14:30 This is very good, but it's not
14:32 the Porsche level. On that snow
14:34 course, this was a full Porsche.
14:36 Off throttle, just absolutely
14:38 impeccable chassis balance. Great steering
14:40 precision. Just did everything
14:42 right. Yep. Totally. 100% agree with you.
14:44 But it wasn't the most fun.
14:46 [Music]
14:48 [Music]
14:50 [Music]
14:52 [Music]
14:54 You're right. This is more fun.
14:56 But I gotta say one thing. When the
14:58 Macan came out, I thought, "Wow, this is the worst
15:00 name ever since the Tiguan."
15:02 And then the F-Pace.
15:04 Right. F-Pace. Not a great
15:06 name, but there's some logic behind it.
15:08 The F-Pace is based on the
15:10 XF. They're gonna do an
15:12 E-Pace that's based off the XE,
15:14 and then they're gonna do a three-row J-Pace
15:16 that's based off the XJ.
15:18 Really? I think you must have knocked yourself
15:20 half unconscious on the window frame like everyone
15:22 else did. No, I did not. I laughed at you
15:24 when you did, but look, there's a high
15:26 price you gotta pay for fashion.
15:28 Speaking of suffering, the center
15:30 console. These materials are so
15:32 cheap, they would be, "Eh,"
15:34 in a Mazda 6. And by the way,
15:36 Mazda 6, great car, love it, but it's $25,000
15:38 and it has all the same plastics.
15:40 Unacceptable at this price point. I don't think it's that
15:42 good, but I will point out that Jaguar's
15:44 a very small company, limited money.
15:46 For every vehicle Jag sells,
15:48 BMW sells about 30.
15:50 So, they had to make a decision. Are we gonna
15:52 put our money right here, or are we gonna
15:54 put it into the mechanicals? They put it in the
15:56 mechanicals. Yeah, and in fact, you know what they did that was really
15:58 smart? They delayed the F-Pace.
16:00 Why? Because of the Macan.
16:02 It came out, and they're like, "Whoa!
16:04 This is a great SUV.
16:06 We've gotta be at least that good,
16:08 if not better." And it drives
16:10 better. It does. It really does.
16:12 They nailed it. Dynamically, this thing's kinda perfect.
16:14 On these squishy winter tires,
16:16 it rides really well. It's a great
16:18 road trip car, whereas the Macan,
16:20 it's okay, but I'd rather be driving in this.
16:22 This is more plush. It's more luxury.
16:24 That's definitely more sport.
16:26 It is that classic Jaguar thing. Grace
16:28 and pace. It's got both.
16:30 I just said the Macan is more sport, and yet,
16:34 actually, when the road turns
16:36 twisty, that may be a little bit tighter,
16:38 but this is more fun. This all-wheel drive
16:40 system wants to be sideways, just like all
16:42 of the Jaguar rear-wheel drive sedans.
16:44 But it works better. It works certainly far
16:46 better than the F-Type Coupe all-wheel drive,
16:48 which, you look at the gas pedal,
16:50 it rockets itself sideways and then
16:52 aims you right at a guardrail. It kinda
16:54 ends your fun, whereas this all-wheel drive
16:56 system kinda helps you to have more fun.
16:58 On initial throttle application, rotates the back
17:00 end, and then pulls itself through.
17:02 Loves to be sideways. Loves a back
17:04 road. I mean, at what point
17:06 in the history of the automobile did an SUV
17:08 say, "And that's just gonna be for off-roading.
17:10 I'm gonna love back roads."
17:12 Well, actually, I can tell you, it's this car!
17:14 This was the game-changer. This is the first
17:16 time an SUV was, like,
17:18 actually great on a back road.
17:20 And if you think about it, that's gotta
17:22 be the F-Pace's biggest selling
17:24 point, right? The handling. No, the handling
17:26 is that good, but the looks
17:28 are that much better. Ah, good point.
17:30 And look, really, Jaguar's
17:32 strongest selling point right now is
17:34 sex. And where does that sex come from?
17:36 Ian Callum. And by Ian Callum,
17:38 I mean the design team he's put together,
17:40 not Ian himself, right? But if you
17:42 think about it, okay, this is kinda the
17:44 first sexy SUV, and it used to be
17:46 that SUVs didn't really matter how they
17:48 looked as long as they satisfied one of
17:50 two things, right? It had to either
17:52 look like something General Patton would
17:54 use to invade Sicily. Gelendewagen.
17:56 Yeah. Or Wrangler, right? Yep.
17:58 Or it had to look like a moon buggy.
18:00 Like a Suzuviacross.
18:02 Yeah, or the Macan.
18:04 Right, but this is the first one that's like,
18:06 "Oh, that's a really good-looking
18:08 vehicle."
18:10 SUVs are about utility, and people
18:12 are willing to spend a premium
18:14 on these types of vehicles, and it's for one
18:16 reason, desirability. Yep,
18:18 absolutely true. I don't think there's an
18:20 SUV on the planet that's more desirable
18:22 than the F-Pace. It's off the charts.
18:24 The Macan
18:26 was a revelation when it came
18:28 out, the first compact sport
18:30 ute that actually did the sport
18:32 thing. The utility thing?
18:34 Unfortunately, not so much, since
18:36 it has back seats that are too small to fit
18:38 a Hobbit. But dynamically,
18:40 this Porsche is so good that it sent
18:42 Jaguar back to the drawing board.
18:44 And that's why the F-Pace is even
18:46 better. It had to be.
18:48 If Jaguar were to misfire here,
18:50 like they did with the X-Type,
18:52 it may have been fatal. Thankfully,
18:54 they didn't, and the F-Pace
18:56 adds the idea of space to the
18:58 existing brand values, grace and
19:00 pace. Besides, how could
19:02 we not call something so good-looking
19:04 the winner of this head-to-head?
19:06 Hey, um,
19:12 what are you doing? Measuring the temperature of the
19:14 heated steering wheel. Why?
19:16 Because it's interesting.
19:18 Like, for example, did you know that the Jaguar
19:20 peaks at 100 degrees and then drops to, like,
19:22 97, which means it's barely warm?
19:24 The Porsche, it peaked at 96
19:26 and then drops to, like, under 92.
19:28 So it's barely even a heated steering wheel
19:30 at that point. It's barely a temperature maintainer. It's below
19:32 body temperature. Okay, A?
19:34 97, 8.
19:36 I was in Are You Plugged, Sweden.
19:38 It was 40 degrees below zero. I turned on the
19:40 heated steering wheel for two seconds
19:42 and then turned it off because it got hot. Because
19:44 B, anything above 72 degrees
19:46 is disgusting. And, like, body
19:48 temperature, like, skin-on-skin contact,
19:50 do you know how uncomfortable that feels?
19:52 Your poor wife.
19:54 100.2 degrees. This is
19:56 science. Look at this. Can we film the episode
19:58 now? Goodbye. Can we film the episode?
20:00 Goodbye.
20:02 (explosion)