Auto News 5

The Food Lion AutoFair is a scene. Describing it almost makes me sound like Bill Hader's Stefon character from Saturday Night Live. You've got deep-fried cupcakes, the world's largest television, reality-show repo men, catfish racing, and that thing where monkeys dressed as cowboys ride around on dogs. (No, really. They're called Team Ghost Riders.) From what I understand, there are even some attractions that involve cars. Which is why 100,000 people show up over the course of the four-day event. Come for the car show, stay to wager on catfish.

The best and worst thing about the fifth-generation Camaro is that it genuinely is a concept car. "That's been our driving theme for both the coupe and convertible: execute it to look exactly like the concept car," Camaro chief engineer Al Oppenheiser told us back in 2010. Three years of strong, growing sales have validated this approach. The only problem is that the Camaro also drives a lot like a concept car. Beyond the bad sight lines and bottleneck trunk opening, we've consistently complained about the softball-sized shifter, the hard-to-read gauges, and the enormous deep-dish steering wheel -- all details that looked cool on the floor of Detroit's Cobo Hall but don't translate to the street. When we took a 2010 Camaro SS to the track, its high curb weight, tall gearing, and tendency to understeer at the limit furthered our impression that the car, though certainly fast and capable, was meant more for cruising and looking good than satisfying the most demanding drivers.

In a junkyards-and-smokestacks part of L.A., forty-six-year-old Rob Dickinson, leader of the 1990s rock band Catherine Wheel, lies belly-down in a cluttered workshop under a 1991 Porsche 911 that costs more than twice as much as a brand-new 911 Turbo.

It's difficult for me to wrap my head around the Hyundai Equus. I certainly appreciate the enormous cabin and plethora of technology and convenience features. Unfortunately the cabin is trimmed in materials that are just nice. Yes, the Equus undercuts the price of the competition by tens of thousands of dollars, but cars this big are supposed to have over-the-top materials quality. It makes sense to offer a fairly basic mid-size sedan or crossover. I don't fully understand the appeal of a car this big that has all the luxury features of the competition with a downmarket interior.