I feel almost nothing looking at these pictures of the new Pagani Huayra R, the latest, most hardcore and supposedly one of the last versions of the Huayra that the Italian boutique supercar maker will build.
Advertisement
Like other Huayras, this one has a 6.0-liter V12 from AMG. However, this particular iteration is naturally aspirated and develops 850 horsepower. The Huayra R weighs just 2,314 pounds and generates way more downforce than any previous Pagani. It costs 2.6 million euros before tax — nearly $3.1 million — and just 30 will be built. I’m sure their owners will love ’em.
In fairness to the Huayra R, my disinterest has nothing to do with the car itself. Track-focused hypercars that can’t legally run in any category of motorsport have never made a ton of sense to me, though they’re a cool show of unbridled performance, and the Huayra R earns points for its commitment to the naturally aspirated V12 and stylish exterior. I mean, you could put a picture of this and the Zonda R next to each other and depending on how recently I woke up or how much I’ve had to drink, I probably wouldn’t be able to tell them apart — but that’s another story.
Image: Pagani
Rather, my feelings are an inevitable consequence of Pagani’s glacial release cycle. It makes a car, and then it sells special editions of that car for 10 years, and then it makes another one. It’s only done this twice, but because that’s transpired over the course of two decades, I often find myself wondering whether Pagani is still a thing or not.
G/O Media may get a commission
And look, Pagani doesn’t have to change its process for anybody. There’s something refreshing about the one car approach in this age of excess, and the understanding that once said car reaches its final form, like the Huayra R, it’s time to move on. So while I’m finding it hard to care about the Huayra R itself, I also sort of do because of what it represents. It’s a sign that the next Pagani is coming. As we’ve established, that’s a rare event in the course of world history.
Image: Pagani
Advertisement
What will the Huayra successor be, then? It’s codenamed C10, and it’s been a while since we’ve heard anything about it. Back in 2019, founder Horacio Pagani told Road & Track that both twin-turbo V12 and battery-electric versions would be sold, with the V12 optionally paired with either a manual or a paddle-shift transmission. At the time, Pagani said the car would arrive in 2021. You can imagine there’s at least a small chance that schedule might’ve slid in the past year.
Until that day comes, we have the Huayra R — a pretty neat track machine in its own right, but also a symbol that Pagani is right on the brink of another transformation.
There’s never been a better time to get out and go camping somewhere than right now. It’s a chance to be socially distant somewhere that isn’t your house. For some, camping means buying a trailer, motorhome or a whole school bus. What if you could slide a camper into the back of your family sedan? That’s exactly what Toppola campers did for some Saabs.
The Toppola campers were a bit like the campers that you slide into the beds of pickup trucks, but meant for cars instead.
According to Toppola’s website written by one of its founders, the camper is the brainchild of Arwo Pullola. In the early 1980s, Pullola wanted to build a car camper. In 1982 he met Matts Mollestam and Peter Malmberg. The duo bought the camper project from Pullola and created EMICO. The two would bring their strengths together to build a car-based camper. Malmberg and Mollestam sold boat accessories and built boats, respectively, so they wanted their campers to be built and feel like boats. Check out this tour of one!
The team got right to work making their ideas a reality and they even managed to get 10 campers delivered in the same year, too. In case you were wondering, Toppola does have an explanation for its name:
The word Toppola came from “Topp” – on top and “ola” is a refinement of the ending as Arwo originates from Finland.
G/O Media may get a commission
Eventually Saab got involved in the EMICO Toppola camper project and changes to the campers came along with it. The Toppola site says that Saab wanted the campers to look as good and have a similar fit and finish as Saab cars. The Toppola camper was changed from top to bottom with updates to materials and design. A combination stove and heater was added to make cooking and winter camping possible. Saab helped the EMICO team with brochures and marketing.
The partnership between Saab and Toppola was definitely two-way. As the Toppola site says, the EMICO team was involved in the development of the Saab 9000 to make sure that the camper could slide in without issues. Toppola-equipped Saabs even appeared at dealerships during the release of the Saab 9000.
Unfortunately, the partnership between EMICO and Saab ended because, as Malmberg says in the Toppola site, Saab and EMICO were too different in size and culture. EMICO itself also closed down. Sadly, misfortune became a norm for Toppola in the following years. Not only did Toppola have delays due to getting approvals from the German TÜV vehicle inspection but its shop suffered from a destructive fire.
But between the bad news came a new idea: Make the Toppola camper compatible for any car. The unit would be separated into two pieces. The upper unit was the main living space while the lower unit would be built to fit into specific cars. Such would make the Toppola modular. Imagine being able to shove a camper into any car. It also made the Toppola campers able to be fit on pickup trucks, too.
Advertisement
The Toppola campers were pretty roomy and lightweight. Check out these specs from Do It Yourself RV:
Exterior length: 10.8′ Interior height: 6.5′ Roof height when mounted: 8.2′ Weight: 330 lbs (once the hatchback was removed from the Saab, it only added 253 lbs to the vehicle’s weight).
Advertisement
Image: Toppola
They appeared to be pretty durable, too. We wrote about some Swedes that took one from Sweden to Vietnam and back!
Advertisement
Unfortunately, that future didn’t happen for Toppola. While Toppola got off campers for the Saab 9000, 900, and 9-3, its greater dreams never materialized. Some were also used in Ford Scorpios and Sierras. Sweden’s recession hit Toppola hard and it closed its doors in 2006. Saab didn’t last much longer.
It’s a shame because given the meteoric RV sales of today I bet something like this would be a smashing hit. Car design has also changed quite a bit since those days, but I bet a crafty engineer could get around modern car limitations.
Advertisement
H/T – Austin Little!
For GREAT deals on a new or used Chevrolet check out Community Chevrolet TODAY!
You know that bit towards the end of a relationship when you both know that it’s coming to an end but don’t want to admit it? When you put extra effort in to cover up the fact that you’re two people heading in very different directions, it can be wonderful, but tainted with foresight of the inevitable. That is what it feels like to tool around in the updated 2021 Jaguar F-Pace SVR.
(Full disclosure: Jaguar invited me to drive the new F-Pace SVR in Oxfordshire, England, made sure I had enough tea to counteract an early start and fed me delicious food so I didn’t pass out on the way home.)
The 2021 Jaguar F-Pace SVR Explained
Jaguar Land Rover recently announced that it’ll be going all-EV, all the time. This was expected, as it’s the way the world is going (sorry, hardcore V8 people). Fortunately, Jaguar has some remaining projects with an internal combustion engine under the hood coming our way.
JLR’s Special Vehicle Operations has been making some pretty special stuff using the company’s 5.0-liter supercharged V8 over the years, and this updated take on the F-Pace SVR is the latest of them. It’s strange, however, to consider we know it’ll soon be taken out back and introduced to a shotgun.
The fastest F-Pace isn’t lacking on grunt, packing 540 HP and 516 lb-ft (a gain of 14 lb-ft over the old model) from the V8. It sends its power to all four wheels via an eight-speed automatic gearbox, and according to Jaguar, it’ll do 0-60 mph in 3.8 seconds (which is 0.3 seconds quicker than the previous model), and tops out at 178 mph. The Jaguar websites lists its starting price at $84,600.
The F-Pace is Jaguar’s midsize SUV, designed to expand the lineup and grow sales. This is the Jag for the family that likes to travel in comfort and style but is maybe tired of a German or American car. Unfortunately, in some cases with the interior of the F-Pace, Jaguar’s new venture into crossovers and SUVs also came at the expense of some quality considerations and the use of cheaper-feeling materials in some trims.
Sculpted during Jaguar designer Ian Callum’s beautiful era, the F-Pace cuts a fine-enough figure for a family-friendly SUV. The SVR version strips away any pretense of subtlety with that supercharged V8 under the hood, quad tailpipes out back, 22-inch wheels with grippy rubber, airflow-manipulating venting behind the wheels, a fender vent so large you could lose an adorable puppy in it, hood vents to cool the monster motor and more subtle changes to the body. Overall, Jaguar claims a reduction in lift when driving of up to 35 percent.
The interior has been given a huge, desperately needed glow-up. Where there was once a sea of nasty plastic, there’s now leather, metal or less-nasty plastic. JLR’s new Pivi Pro infotainment system is bolted to the dash too.
Under the skin, the F-Pace SVR sports retuned dampers for a smoother ride, a fresh speed-sensitive steering set-up, more stopping power, a retuned rear differential and the torque converter from the Project 8 super sedan’s automatic transmission. It’s the car the original F-Pace SVR should have been, really.
Jaguars have classically been all about “grace, space and pace.” The new F-Pace SVR aims to be all three, but the grace-to-pace ratio skews a little further toward the latter here, as one may expect with an SVR badge.
By Jaguar’s reckoning (and a lot of engineering), it’ll manage 19.2 mpg in mixed driving (using European WLTP numbers, hello over there), but after a spirited spell behind the wheel I only managed 14.8 mpg.
Driving The 2021 Jaguar F-Pace SVR
The whole package may be made up of things that sound very hardcore – a body shape that produces 35 percent less lift, a 3 percent better drag coefficient, a torque converter from the Project 8 — but what’s important is Jaguar’s gone and made something fun without ruining the ride. With the noise, movement, and the fact that your neck gets a small workout when you pin it, people who like going fast will dig this thing pretty hard.
The regular driving mode is as soft and squishy as you’d hope from a Jaguar. The suspension rolls with the punches of the UK’s nasty rutted roads with ease, only jarring when you hit a pothole at speed. The steering isn’t super light and it’s not heavy enough to put you off driving it after an arms day at the gym. It’s purposeful. The eight-speed box shifts silently and swiftly when you need it to, with nary a hint of a jerk or jolt to let you know it’s doing its speedy thing.
There was no cause to use the car’s inclement weather mode at the launch event I attended, despite the UK’s typical gloom. Eco mode made the controls feel numb and as punitive as anything eco-mode always is. If you buy a 5.0-liter V8 and want to use its Eco setting, please find a better-suited hobby.
It all sounds civilized and pleasant, right? Like a cream tea in a rural bakery. It is, except for two small details: It cannot keep quiet and it likes going fast. Without trying, it’s remarkably easy to put big numbers on the speedo. The V8 will gently, but loudly, accompany you in doing so. Even with the noisy pipes button shut off it’s still blimmin’ noisy. You may upset sleepy villagers, but it’s so rare to hear a V8 quite like it these days that you won’t care. You’ll be lost in its song. The villagers may get used to it.
Pop the car in to Dynamic mode (Jag speak for “really quite miffed”) and you feel the benefit of the full suite of changes. Throttle response sharpens up, the steering gets heavier, dampers steel themselves for abuse, gear shifts become more aggressive and the instrument binnacle switches from smooth blue to “COME GET SOME” red.
The pipes open up and make more noise that bounces around the cabin, and likely everything else with in a half-mile. The frankly ludicrous power and noise delivery will make you want to nail the thing everywhere. All the time. It’s addictive, really.
The suspension may be angrier in dynamic, but it’s still on the smooth side – that means movement when you accelerate, brake and turn. Being a big (for the UK) SUV, and a heavy one at that, there’s some weight transfer to deal with. Unlike some of its competition, it doesn’t pretend to be a racecar when you want to play, and won’t punish you accordingly with painfully tight tuning. That comfortable weight transfer can be used to your advantage to get the car free, given the space as well. The team at SVO knows how to have fun.
If you want it to be race car sharp and track ready, you’re going to be left wanting though. It’s not numb to drive, but you’re hustling a big ol’ SUV here. There’s lots of everything to move, but you get enough to know what’s going on up front.
Getting the SVR to slow down is easy and smooth. There’s plenty of pedal feedback when you need to scrub off some speed, and if you need to do so in a hurry it can feel quite forceful. Though if the road is a touch uneven, you’ll need to have your wits about you, as the tires will find their own way if you’re not careful.
What To Know Before Buying The 2021 Jaguar F-Pace SVR
No bones about it, this is a family car at heart. Its raised ride height gives a commanding view of what’s going on around you (at least in the leafy UK where everything is miniature and twee compared to BIG TOWN, U.S.A.). A full fat Range Rover will dwarf you, but they’re not super abundant, so it’s not a huge issue.
Usually, the infotainment in a JLR product is often its greatest setback. It used to be slow, buggy and awful, but Pivi Pro’s appears to be as slick as they come at first touch. A day with the car isn’t sufficient time to learn a system’s subtly life-ruining foibles, but you can spot the glaringly awful ones pretty quick.
The screen responds well to prodding, the navigation formatting is clear and concise, and the system overall is easy to use and move around in. It’s just a shame it’s so easy to plug your phone in to use CarPlay and ignore all the work that’s gone in to it, huh? But that’s the rub.
Tight spots can be easily negotiated thanks to cameras placed all over the car showing you every conceivable angle on the car’s 11.4-inch Pivi Pro screen. Speed, navigation and other info is clearly displayed on the 12.3-inch digital instrument binnacle as well.
Sadly, though, the exhaust has lost its “pop.” Yeah, it sounds great and the motor is incredible, but until recently the noise flying out of an SVR’s ass sounded angrier. Regulations took the crackle away from the thunder, and it makes the car sound far more “grown up.” Your inner child should be doing that arms crossed frowny shrug thing about now. Or your outer child.
Verdict
It’s truly a shame that we all know how our relationship with the Jaguar F-Pace SVR is going to have to end. We know is has to, and we know why, and the EV future will be fun, too. But with this SVR’s V8, when the going is good it is good.
There are bigger SUVs out there for the money, but do they look this good, come in orange and sound as feral? Likely not. The more critical question likely is, does the car wear the right badge? Do people with this sort of money want an SVR badge over, say, a BMW M or Mercedes-AMG model? That’s on you, friend, but choose wisely.
The new Jaguar F-Pace SVR is the quick SUV for someone who wants to live life fast and, now more improved than ever, comfortably. It’s for those savoring travel at ridiculous speed and not suffering for it in something that can carry a lot of people. It’s not the sportiest out there, and it’s all the better for it.
On the other hand, it’s loud all the time and I found the new steering can be a touch odd at times. The SVR is the sort of package that you quickly learn can be “a bit much” for every day, and if that’s not your thing then perhaps it’s best avoided. It’d be a shame to miss this one if you’ve the opportunity to go for it though, because it’ll be gone all too quickly.
For GREAT deals on a new or used Toyota check out Toyota of Milpitas TODAY!
The new Land Rover Defender may not be as hardcore as it used to be, but it looks like it still has some brawn. A new video shows one Defender hauling a car hauler loaded with six other Land Rovers down an icy road, and it is frankly pretty damn impressive.
Most of the original naysayers have gone through a bit of a conversion as the new Defender grows on them. With an aluminum unibody, it’s not as robust as its predecessors that earned the Defender its cult status amongst car enthusiasts, but it’s still a pretty damn good machine. The new model has already sold more than any of the original Defenders combined.
And that’s very likely in part because it’s one hell of a functional vehicle. According to the description of the video embedded above, a UK dealership called Stafford Land Rover owned the transporter that ended up getting stuck on the icy road. So, why not nab a Defender 110 and make some magic? Even after some initial slipping, it bit ground and pulled the hauler out of peril.
Advertisement
The exact trim isn’t clear just from watching the video, but if we presume it’s the the top-of-the-line D300, we can say it has 296 horsepower and 479 pound-feet of torque produced by its 3.0-liter diesel engine, which is plenty functional for a modern off-roader.
There’s a lot of fascinating things happening in the strangely made-up world of the stock market lately, and there’s a lot going on politically. Also, cars, specifically, electric cars. Lots going on everywhere, really, which is why I think it’s worth taking a moment to talk about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s purchase of a lot of “call options” of Tesla stock, and how we feel about it.
So, here’s what’s going on: a disclosure filing has revealed that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) purchased “25 call options with a stake price of $500 and an expiration date of 3/18/2022.”
What this means (to be clear, I’m not a financial expert here by any means—my idea of a good investment is putting the case of beer on the bottom shelf of the shopping cart and hoping nobody notices it) is that Pelosi has a contract where she can buy, with no obligation, shares of Tesla stock at a set price before the expiration date, and these options cost her between $500,000 and one million dollars.
Advertisement
It’s enough to say it’s potentially an awful lot of stock in Tesla, a company that makes electric cars.
Now, anyone could see the lightning writing on the walls here and realize that there’s likely to be a lot of growth for EVs coming up in the immediate future. Smart people with resources may very well choose to buy stocks in companies that build electric cars, like Tesla.
Nancy Pelosi is smart and has money, so it’s not shocking she made this decision. But, she’s also part of the government that makes the bigger decisions that make her stock-buying decision smart, and I’m not sure that’s a good thing.
That feels a lot shadier, but there’s still something about this Tesla stock options purchase that feels wrong. The increased EV adoption is good in general, and I’m not against people making money, but if you’re part of the organization that makes laws that can affect, say, how many EVs get sold, I don’t think you should also get to profit from that, since the possibility for abuse is, unsurprisingly, huge.
Advertisement
We have far bigger political problems going on right now, no question, but at some point this feels like something that should be addressed. All of these fuckers are rich enough. If you’re in the business of making laws and regulations that affect industries, how about you don’t get to buy stock in any of the industries your decisions may actually affect.
They can buy those savings bonds or whatever those useless-seeming things grandparents give graduating grandkids are. I don’t care if they can’t get as rich as they want—if you want that public service job so bad, well, this should just be one of the tradeoffs. If you want to buy stocks more, then get a job where your decisions aren’t potentially altering the fate of the companies you buy stock in.
Advertisement
As we’ve seen now more than ever, the stock market is really just a big game for rich people, anyway. I don’t see why we should let players in who can change the rules of the whole game.
This is hardly a new opinion, but with this recent reveal, it can’t hurt to be brought up again.
For GREAT deals on a new or used Chevrolet check out George Chevrolet TODAY!
