I managed to be lucky enough to have lunch with a tech vendor the other day and got to conversing about hobbies. I mentioned my car hobby and they mentioned an event happening later that day they had lined up with a local exotic car rental company and invited me to come along. I naturally jumped at the chance.
The cars they had available were the Jaguar F-Type R, a Lamborghini Huracan, and a C7 Stingray (yeah I shook my head at that choice).
The Lambo was obviously the car I had intended to get my grubby mitts on, but when I showed up the hood cover was open and the car was apparently inop after having done one lap and calling it quits in traditional Italian fashion. So I signed up and waited for my name to be called to drive the Jag.
While waiting I got witness the ridiculous sounds that the Jag makes at full throttle. I kinda had to chuckle at it, as it kinda reminded me of a mustang with glasspacks, don't get me wrong, it sounded amazing but at the same time almost comically loud.
During the wait time, the guys managed to figure out they had been bamboozled by the red Italian and that it was merely out of gas, though still showed a 1/4 tank. Go figure. After it was running again the line for the Jag suddenly got a lot shorter. I waited a little while to see hwo fast the line for the Lambo would go, but it looked like the event would be over before I got called, so I jumped into the short line for the Jag.
First impressions.
Nice interior, nice seats. Steering wheel was a nice size and shape. Good forward visibility.
Got belted in, RACE mode on, exhaust mode set to 11.. The instructor was not keen on my idea to turn traction control off. Another time perhaps.
We did one pace lap of the parking lot cone course to get familiar, then I was let loose.
It's a fast car.. and loud.. did I mention it's loud? Also, the brakes are just phenomenal on this thing. While watching the other drivers before me I could see where they were braking, I decided to push it as far past their point as I dared, I could have gone way deeper than what I did, they really are outstanding.
Handling on the little course was good, though admittedly I was more interested in trying to get the car sideways, but the AWD or the traction control had other thoughts, any time I started to get the rear loose the computers would politely correct me and put a stop to my shenanigans.
In a straight line it was a hoot, but I was a little disappointed, it just didn't feel as fast as 550hp ought to feel. This was the fastest/most powerful car I have driven to date, but I felt like it should have been faster.. dunno why.
Final thoughts.
It was loud, it was fun. But it's not $100,000 worth of fun.
Only have this crappy cell pic to prove any of this is true.