Auto News 5

Doing something new often requires taking baby steps, and this axiom seems to ring true when it comes to the excruciatingly slow proliferation (or not) of electric vehicles in the U.S.

I know this isn't the first thing I should be commenting on after my first-ever drive in a Porsche 911, but, wow, what a gorgeous interior. The no-nonsense, leather-swathed cabin says "expensive and fast" better than our Audi R8, with all of its carbon fiber trim, or our Nissan GT-R, with its multiple electronic display screens.

The AMG Driving Academy at the Nürburgring is a trifecta of automotive scholarly brilliance: there are cars and then there are AMGs; there are tracks and then there's the Nürburgring, and there are schools, and then there's the AMG Driving Academy. But I'm not yet aware of this as my shuttle picks me up from the Frankfurt airport. As we get closer to the famed 'Ring, Porsche after tuned Porsche drives by in the other direction, a gaggle of Nissan Skylines buzz past us, wastegates whistling. An old bi-plane flies by, doing loop-de-loops in the sky above us into the sunset. I smile as I realize that I'm at Ground Zero in the promised land of engine-powered mayhem.

Is the Horsepower War Almost Over?
War is hell, unless it's a horsepower war, in which case it's kind of fun. For more than a decade, the cars from AMG have been on the front lines of the horsepower wars, which have seen the top autobahn rockets - most, naturally, from Germany - zoom past 300, then 400, and now 500 horsepower. But all good wars must one day come to an end, and for the horsepower wars, that day is starting to feel very close indeed. The new E63 AMG, for example, uses the same engine as the previous model (AMG's near-ubiquitous 6.2-liter V-8) and pushes its headline figure ahead by only 11 hp.