Tabla de contenidos para Summer 2022 en Vicarious

“Do you want to go to Italy?” asked the “Dvoice on the phone. I’d been grounded for almost two years due to, well, you know, so my reply was automatic: “Sure!” “Good, it’s a Ferrari event, so you have to be on your best behaviour.” Sweet, I thought. My first trip to Europe after a forced hiatus, and it’s to drive an Italian exotic. “Which one?” I asked. “The 812 Competizione.” There was a pause. My palms started getting clammy. I tightened my grip on the phone. “Oh, okay,” I replied. I then learned it would be at Ferrari’s home track, Pista di Fiorano, located just minutes from the Maranello factory where the 812 Competizione, as well as all other Ferraris, come to life. Usually, I’m not intimidated by driving…

Never underestimate the power of goalsetting, amplified by bullheaded chutzpah. Take 65-year-old Valkyrie Racing owner Renee Brinkerhoff. In December 2021 she raced her vintage Porsche 356A across 356 miles of Antarctica’s Union Glacier. Team Valkyrie didn’t call the challenge a race. But consider some of the logistics. Starting with just getting there. The five members of the team flew in from as far as Colorado, Spain and Britain. Obviously, no flights were direct. Nor was the Porsche 356A carry-on; it had to be flown in on a Russian Ilyushin cargo plane. Then, it spent three weeks sitting outside on the glacier, collecting minus 20-degree dust while waiting for the team to arrive. And, yes, that’s minus 20 before wind chill. Good luck with ignition. Furthermore, Brinkerhoff’s Porsche is a 65-year-old…

The streets of Saint-Pierre are narrow and can be steep, well-suited to the compact Citroëns and Peugeots favoured by the town’s residents. Even so, I believe I drove every road on this small island, some several times, and never tired of the view through the window. I was in a full-sized Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck that until recently would have been left behind at the dock in Newfoundland. Now, however, there’s a 15-car passenger ferry that connects this tiny French territory to the Burin Peninsula of Newfoundland, and it’s finally possible to make a road trip from Canada direct to France. It’s been a long time coming. There’s been a ferry for years that carried foot passengers and freight, but six years ago, the French government spent $50 million on…

We’re on the island of São Miguel, in the Azores, and it’s the first time a motorcycle press launch has ever been held here. I understand why the region hasn’t hosted a press event before: Logistics. The Azores is a chain of Portuguese islands off the coast of Portugal, in the middle of nowhere — you can sail off in any direction and travel across the Atlantic for more than 1,400 kilometres before touching land again. The islands are so remote, Google has yet to provide a street view, so I imagine getting a couple of dozen motorcycles here from mainland Europe was no easy task. But I’m glad it was done, because what a treasure São Miguel is, especially when being discovered on the 2022 Husqvarna Norden 901. Founded…

DAY 1: Vancouver Throwing his hands up, Richard at Richmond BC’s Chrysler dealership half apologizes. There’s a crown of ash atop the Pacifica Pinnacle Hybrid. It was washed at 10am. I’m here for this Chrysler minivan, to move our daughter and a few of her favourite things from Victoria to Toronto — across smoke-filled and threatening-to-burn-any-second western cordillera, endless plague-riven prairie then scrubby Ontario, a province bigger than its opinion of itself — all for postgrad studies at a university whose very name sparks protest. Flying here over the mountains, the Rockies occasionally emerged from the brume, their white caps now ashen. Picture endless acres of old meringues from a Glasgow pensioners’ club. I spend the evening in the company of good friends on a Kitsilano restaurant patio. The dry…

Roadside Chic is all about finding those hidden gems, the places that provide a perfect balance of comfort, luxury, exceptional service and the opportunity to do as much or as little as you want. Here are four exclusive getaway destinations that we believe offer not only a welcome end to your journey, but an equally inspiring route to get there. FAIRMONT EMPRESS Victoria is one of the rarest gems in the Canadian vault of must see travel destinations. Located on Vancouver Island, it resides on the northern shore of the Salish Sea, on a parallel course with Mount Vernon in Washington State and equidistant between Vancouver and Seattle. If you have never been, you owe it to yourself to visit Victoria and experience firsthand the magic and relaxed vibe this…

There few ways to get more ensconced in car culture than a visit to a car museum. Every major manufacturer, from Ford, to Ferrari, to Porsche and on we go has one. Major race courses the world over – Le Mans, Indianapolis, Daytona – have museums either on their premises or close by and the amount of private collections out there – the Blackhawk Museum, the Petersen, LeMay – are too numerous to count. Some of these – the LeMay, for example – are mainly constituted of massive warehouse galleries packed full of cars. The cars are the focus; this is what qualified as a mid-size in 1932, in 1958, in 1975. Here’s the evolution of the pickup. Here’s an old bus. Others, however, are more than that. Much more.…

https://www.vicariousmag.com/first-drive-2023-audi-r8-performance-rwd There are two main types of drivers: Those who drive out of necessity and those who are passionate enthusiasts. The former regards a car as mostly an appliance; a tool to get them to their destination comfortably and conveniently — some even find the task of driving a nuisance. If you’re reading this, you’re definitely the latter. You form an emotional bond with a vehicle; the sound it produces, the feedback you feel through the steering wheel, the way it sinks you into the seat when you gas it — these all stimulate the senses and reinforce that bond. The 2023 Audi R8 Performance RWD is by no means an appliance. The first stimulant is visual. The R8’s halfteardrop shaped silhouette looks as if it were shaped by the…

https://www.vicariousmag.com/first-ride-2022-ducati-streetfighter-v2 Iinitially thought that a morning spent thrashing the 2022 Ducati Streetfighter V2 around I Circuito Monteblanco, a racetrack located 60 kilometres west of Seville, Spain, would have been the crescendo in a day of sport riding, but then we hit the roads to the north of racetrack. Having been told by our hosts that the roads would be twisty, and traffic would be light, it was an unexpected surprise to find a serpentine strip of asphalt so bendy that there was no room to take a breather between curves — almost dizzying, in fact — and aside from a handful of other vehicles we passed along the way, it was almost completely devoid of traffic. There are two schools of design when it comes to the styling of naked…

For reasons unknown, Porsche decided it would be a great idea to fly some classic cars from the company museum in Germany half-way around the world for a nice drive across the Island of Hawaii. A wonderful idea, truly inspired, except for the unfortunate fact that on this particular week in December there would be a freak blizzard bringing 12-inches of snow, rain, flooding and power outages to the Big Island. To make matters worse, all of the classic cars Porsche flew out are convertibles. Nevertheless, the plan is to drive counter clock wise around the coast of Big Island on day one, and then drive clockwise on day two before cutting back to the hotel via the spectacular Saddle Road, which runs across the dormant volcano Mauna Kea. We’ll…

When I picked up my Chevrolet Corvette Stingray loaner – all swooping midengined angles and sparkling Accelerate Yellow Metallic paint – I was wearing a red, white and blue trucker-style item emblazoned with what looked like a U.S. Route 66 – yes, that one – road sign. A closer inspection revealed that while it did say “66”, instead of “route” above that it said “order” and it was then I realized I had come across a way-cool Star Wars/Americana combo. Why? Well, because, like the two divergent examples of popular American culture on the hat --the Old Mother Road, baked into the earth below and the world of the famous space opera, many millions of miles above --the latest Corvette is an incredibly tantalizing mix of the old and the…

https://www.vicariousmag.com/featured-car-2022-porsche-taycan-turbo-s-cross-turismo The Porsche Taycan Turbo S Cross Turismo. Yes, it’s a darn long name but you know what? A car this special deserves all the long nomenclature you can heap upon it. After all; when you’re basically a family wagon that can lay up to 750 horsepower onto the pavement without hardly breaking a sweat, you know you’re something special. Indeed, when you feel that launch-controlled start for the first time (and the second time, and the third, and…), the feeling gets driven home in less than three seconds. Those aren’t fast sedan numbers. Heck, they’re not even sports car numbers; those are supercar numbers and the fact that you’re doing it all by just firing a bunch of electrons about is hard to believe, even in this day in…

BMW has a long association with art, be it the driving kind where one is painting the racing line on a snaking road in an M3, or perhaps the more tangible kind represented by the famed BMW Art Cars of which there are nineteen in total. French racing driver Herve Poulain approached BMW in 1975 with the idea of giving an artist free reign on his 3.0 CSL race car. American sculptor Alexander Calder got the call, and the resulting coupe, adorned in bold, flowing swaths of red, yellow, white and blue was a hit at the 24 Hours of Le Mans that year. While Poulain didn’t finish the race, his 3.0 CSL fired the starting gun for the BMW Art Car phenomenon. Notables bestowing BMW sheet metal with their…

When it comes to the world of big luxury cars, there will always be one that stands tall above the rest. It’s called the S-Class, and it has been the industry standard for luxury motoring this side of Rolls-Royce and Bentley (actually, when the S first arrived in North America, it was priced quite similarly to cars from those Brits) for as long as most can remember. Indeed, a new one was released for 2020, and it was everything one would hope. Here’s the thing, though. As of right now, the S-Class is only available as a gas-powered car with 48V hybrid tech (it’s called “EQ-boost”, which will make more sense in a minute) and that’s probably not going to cut it when it comes time to meet governmental EV-sales…

https://www.vicariousmag.com/featured-truck-2022-ford-f-150-raptor Nothing can kill a good road trip buzz like a Canadian winter, eh? Here at Vicarious, we live for the open road and any chance to go for a long drive, even if there’s no destination in mind. But the constant weather warnings and salty pavement mean most of us have parked our summer toys for a few months yet. So, what’s a Canuck with wanderlust to do? Simple: get a Ford Raptor. Overkill? Perhaps, and at $110,000 as equipped, our test truck is a pricy machine, but it does a heck of a good job of staving off the stir crazies as we pine for spring thaw. Plus, no matter what the road – or off-road – conditions, this brute is ready to tackle them. While there’s a…