Which Will Win Standing-Mile Drag Race? Porsche Cayman vs Subaru Impreza WRX STI

The Subaru Impreza WRX STI and Porsche Cayman are two very different cars, yet both have the basic characteristic of going fast intrinsically linked to their character. They achieve and maintain speed quite differently and both can be thought of as weapons in certain road conditions.

However, what happens when you pit the heavier and less aerodynamic 305hp Subaru against the rear-wheel drive Porsche with 275hp in a one-mile drag race? Well, since the Porsche has a derestricted top speed and the Subaru is limited by gearing to around 240 km/h, it could go either way, due to the length of the proposed race.

Obviously, the Subaru gets off the line much quicker and cleaner than the Porsche, but it’s what happens next that could be called insightful, when the Porsche’s aero, weight and gearing advantage begin to come into play.

Porsche Cayenne Turbo Pitted Against ML 63 AMG by Fifth Gear

Two all-wheel drive leviathans were recently pitted against each other by the chaps over at Fifth Gear, and as with just about any other comparison test out there, only one of them emerged as the victor. First, we should see whom exactly we are dealing with: in one corner, we have a performance SUV from Stuttgart, while in the other one, we have...a performance SUV from Stuttgart.

Actually, the resemblances between the two rivals are more than meets the eye, as both cars have 500+ hp, offer a naught to 100 km/h (62mph) acceleration time of less than five seconds and have all-wheel drive. On top of that - and very few people know this - they were almost blood brothers, since way before the first generation of the Porsche Cayenne and Volkswagen Touareg/Audi Q7 were developed, Porsche had approached Mercedes-Benz for a co-produced premium SUV in the mid 1990s.

Getting back to the heavyweight boxing match that Fifth Gear's Tiff Needell and rally driver Mark Higgins put together, it's bound to stir some heated discussions. We have a 525 hp and slightly heavier Mercedes-Benz ML 63 AMG driven by Tiff, while Mark tries to show him who's the boss in a 500 hp and slightly lighter Porsche Cayenne Turbo, with both cars being driven on a mildly fast section of a rain-drenched British circuit.

With the tests first consisting of a 0-100-0 mph (0-162-0 km/h) sprint and then of a full lap at high speed, we had a hunch about the winner right from the beginning, but we won't spoil the surprise.

Internet Runs out of Ideas; Porsche 911 Turbo S Takes on Formula 4 Racecar

In the spirit of answering questions that nobody asked, Autocar put together a head-to-head comparison between the latest Porsche 911 Turbo S and a much simpler but more focused Forumla 4 racing car. The Porsche has the advantage of power and grip, whereas the single-seater is a featherweight, running on slicks, propelled by 185 hp from its Ford four-pot.

While this isn’t a foregone conclusion like some other unusual tests put together by the UK-based publication (like that Dacia Duster vs Ginetta video), the result it produces in the end does seem justified and, in hindsight, quite predictable. Both cars’ laps are timed over the short circuit chosen for the test, and the final result highly eloquent. Good thing they’re making single-seaters like this for legal road use now…

BBR Mazda MX-5 Turbo or TRD-Tuned Toyota GT86?

Both the Mazda MX-5 and Toyota GT86 (Scion FR-S) suffer from having too little power, whichever one you go for. This is apparent whatever sporty car you climb out of before driving either of them, but as the EVO video posted below tries to illustrate, there’s no harm in trying to improve these cars to really make the best of their chassis.

First off, the Toyota can be had with a list of factory updates, in the form of a TRD kit. However, that does nothing to up the power and torque of the GT86, the car’s two main quibbles. It does address the grip problem brought about by the use of 17-inch Prius tires in the basic car by swapping them out for larger 18-inch forged rims with much better rubber.

Still not fast enough, but that’s where the MX-5, tuned by BBR, comes in with 70 hp more than the stock GT86, courtesy of a turbo kit. It’s a car that has been slightly neglected ever since the Toyobaru came out, but as the folloowing comparison illustrates, in this slightly-tuned guise, it’s actually a better choice (for the money).

CarBuyer Compares Nissan Qashqai, Mazda CX-5 and Dacia Duster, Guess Which Car Won

What would you choose between a Dacia Duster, Mazda CX-5 and Nissan Qashqai? CarBuyer asks this question in a video review of the three SUVs presented by Rebecca Jackson and Mat Watson.

Some people, including myself, may argue that comparing the budget Dacia Duster (which in the UK is not yet available in the facelifted version) with the more upmarket Mazda CX-5 and Nissan Qashqai is a little exaggerated, but the result of this review will no doubt surprise you.

The Dacia is deemed the best of the three SUVs off-road, but the worst on the road. Mat Watson describes it as archaic, but let’s not forget that it’s by far the cheapest of the three. As for the Nissan and the Mazda, they play a similar game, but there are quite a lot of things separating them. Scroll down to find out which car won the review.

CNET Finds the Mazda 3 Great, Slightly Spoiled by Iffy Infotainment System

By now, you have probably seen many reviews of the new Mazda 3, a car that looks, drives and feels great. However, none of the reviews had as their main focus on the infotainment and satnav systems, so CNET Brian Cooley’s angle is one you should not neglect if you're interested in this kind of stuff.

As usual, the review is tech-centric, and it immediately finds the on-board tech inadequate. The nice-looking dash-mounted screen has a complicated menu, filled with confusing terminology and extra menus and settings you didn’t think were necessary for regular users, plus it doesn’t seamlessly show traffic information or connect to the internet without a phone-hosted (or another) exterior hotspot.

The video posted below goes into detail, explaining all of the discovered issues.

Moving on, other bad points are the apparent lack of power from the (2.5-liter) engine, and the long-legged character of the gearbox that makes it not ideally suited for city driving – the manual 2.0-liter I drove had that too, and it was quite leisurely with 120 hp; you’d have struggled to call it brisk…

Aside from the points mentioned above, the review finds the Mazda hatch a true contender in the class, one of the most appealing models currently on sale in its price bracket.