Auto News 5

Before going to the seventieth Monaco Grand Prix last May, I placed some bets on a Web gambling site. I'd never been to Monaco, less than a square mile of rock packed with billionaires and millionaires and, for a few days, home of the planet's premier street-racing event. I'd never gambled on a Formula 1 race. Once I got there, I was psyched. Betting gave me a fresh take on F1's high craziness. It flipped my normal longing to be trackside for the vicarious thrills and shifted my focus elsewhere. To data and money. Patterns and performance. It was like being on a low-grade dopamine high, the neurotransmitter of pleasure being triggered constantly. Even in my sleep, I began having gambling dreams. All around were stimulants: celebrities pursued by paparazzi, stunners in stilettos, VIPs on yachts, more Ferraris than you could count. But all my senses longed for was more data to up the odds of coming out a winner.

At no point in my life have I ever thought, "Man, I just have to own an AMC-era Jeep that gets 11 mpg." But I'm out getting groceries when my trip is derailed by just such a vehicle. It's a 1989 Grand Wagoneer with 117,000 miles, no rust, and a $3500 asking price. And it's not at a dealership. It's not on eBay. It's the best, most tempting kind of used car: one that's for sale by the side of the road.

Wow, what a difference a roof can make. The GT500 coupe felt a little skittish during our huge comparison test with the ZL1 in June. The convertible is just shy of being terrifying. Cowl shake is a huge problem in the GT500 and there's so much power available that I ended up staying a gear or two higher than I needed to, in order to make the car easier to drive. It's amazing how much more confidence one gets from the added structural rigidity of a coupe.

A couple of month ago, we took our BMW 328i Luxury Line to the track, where we concluded that while the Luxury Line is a better luxury car than the previous 3-series, it lacks the driver involvement and communication we've come to expect in the 3. We wondered whether the issue was exclusive to the Luxury Line or affected all 328i models, so to find out we decided to compare our Four Seasons 328i Luxury Line to a 328i Sport Line. We grabbed our helmets and pointed the two cars to Gingerman Raceway in South Haven, Michigan.