The Asphalt Jungle: In The Line Of Ire

On April 1, I posted a blog on motortrend.com trashing the 2008 Corvette Z06. I slammed its brake pedal for being "too far in the middle." I ridiculed the car for having a noisy tachometer needle. And I posited that, to raise EPA targets, Chevy must secretly be dialing back the Z06's horsepower-given that I'd only managed a sprint to 60 mph of 5.3 seconds "on an inclined entrance ramp." Of course, I closed the piece with two words that finally let the Vette (and me) off the hook: April Fools.

While writing the blog, I thought perhaps I was making my ruse too obvious (I even ran a photo of the base Corvette, not the Z06). But no. Within hours, you mt.com readers had posted dozens of flowery comments-most of them of the "LOL...I was ready to cancel my subscription!" variety. Actually, the vitriol was somewhat more conspicuous. One chap, after realizing he was being punked, admitted he'd been "so pissed I forgot what day it was!" A spunky girl from Texas, a recent Corvette purchaser, wrote that the last two words of my piece "saved your life." Hey, honey, I don't mess with Texas.

Of course, one word explains why my April Fools bluff worked so well: passion. Being auto enthusiasts, passion is our common bond. It's what separates us from other humans, those poor drones whose heads are eternally enshrouded by the fog of mechanized ignorance and indifference, their eyes and brains seeing automobiles not as individual makes and models but as a single mass of "those things with doors and seats that take you places." For them, cars are the ones with wheels, airplanes have the wings, and boats are easily identifiable by their all-you-can-eat buffets. Tell such a person, "Your Acme Magenta 7 is one of the worst cars in its class," and they'll likely reply, "Oh, is that what I have?"

You're different. If we at Motor Trend criticize a car you own or admire, particularly if we point to another vehicle that we prefer, you take it personally, your bloodstream pressurizes to DefCon 1, your fingers fly to the stationery or PC as you furiously begin writing "Dear Euro Snobs/Asia Addicts/Sniveling Domestic Lap Dogs" (please check one). No wonder, then, that when I facetiously ripped apart the Z06, one of the world's best and most revered sporting machines, in no time the front desk called my office: "Delivery for you, Art. Fish in a newspaper."

What fun would it be, though, if we produced our monthly magazine and daily Web updates and never heard a peep-good or bad-from our audience? We'd simply be compiling reports for consumers. And if you didn't care about what we wrote...soon, neither would we.

Like you, we road testers have our individual tastes and preferences. But because we regularly drive so many new cars (essentially, every new car), we're freed from the pride of individual ownership. Thus, our bias when writing reviews is not toward particular brands or countries of origin or what Grandpa drove but simply to excellence. Sometimes an expensive Porsche will beat cheaper rivals with similar track numbers because...it's a better car. Sometimes an inexpensive Honda will edge out costlier competition because...its quality per dollar is a more impressive feat of engineering. Drive as many cars as we do, and your nose for excellence sharpens. The winners stick out.

It'll always be your passion and input, though, that fuel this enterprise. Letters and e-mails, please-not fish.