Beautiful Screamers

Should Your Neighbors ask you, as you glide by, what kind of car the Lagonda is," sneers the Aston Martin ad, "by all means tell them. Should they ask where they can get one, tell them they probably can't." At $152,000, the hand-built Lagonda stands at the top of a class of car that's drool quotient is higher than the national debt or Don Rickles' blood pressure. We call it a Beautiful Screamer. A Beautiful Screamer is a profile car, one that is meant to be seen--and driven. It's a distinctive piece of machinery that's as fast and sinewy as it is stunning. More important, it's a symbol. It speaks volumes about the individual lucky enough to own and drive it. In the eyes of others, you are what you drive. And if you drive a $152,000 Aston Martin Lagonda, baby, you have arrived. All Aston Martins, of course, are completely hand-built and have been since 1913, when car enthusiasts Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford named the beast in which they'd been competing in the Aston Clinton Hillclimb competition an Aston Martin. Eventually, their cars became favorites of British royalty; and the beautiful DB5, introduced in 1963, gained recognition as James Bond's machine in Goldfinger and Thunderball. It soon gave way to the stunning DB6 and it, in turn, to a larger four-seat sports car named the DBS. This model, later powered by a sophisticated four-cam aluminum V8 engine and upgarded in styling, forms the basis for today's four-car Aston Martin stable: the $100,000 V8 coupe, the $110,000 high-performance Vantage, the $125,000 Volante convertible and the futuristic, wedge-shaped Lagonda sedan. About 3300 hours of loving labor go into each massive Lagonda. The body is hand-hammered aluminum, separated from its supporting structure by thin sheets of linen and finished on its surface with 23 coats of hand-rubbed lacquer. Eleven pampered cowhides are selected to match and are then hand-cut to make up the interior. Every panel of decorative wood is mirror-matched; the strip on one door exactly matches that on its opposite--it's just one cut deeper on the log. Only four men in the world are certified to assemble the jewellike 5.4-liter V8 engine; a valve-cover plaque identifies which one of them invested nearly a week of his time in it.

We picked up our test Lagonda at a Beverly Hills dealership. On L.A.'s twisty canyon roads, it felt heavy yet sure-footed, like an N.F.L. linebacker. It picked up speed slowly at first, then with a rush as the four camshafts took hold. Pushed through tight curves, the big tires held on tight but moaned in protest as the body shifted its bulk from one side to the other. High-speed cruising on the open road, though, is where the Lagonda comes into its own--quiet, vibration-free, as stable as a cruise ship. Most of its controls are computerlike touch pads that emit little peeps to acknowledge your commands. Two vertical rows of digital readouts divulge more operating conditions than you'd ever want to know. Mercifully, one button makes everything but the fuel gauge and the speedometer disappear.

Once acclimated to the space-capsule instrument panel, you begin to notice other details. Ten identical rocker switches are aligned in rows on the center console: four for the power windows, six for the adjustable bucket seats. A tinted-glass roof panel illuminates the equally opulent rear cabin, complete with individual sunshades and a separate air conditioner. When you tire of piloting this craft, there's reasonable room to ride back there if your chauffeur is short.

Spread symmetrically across the Lagonda's slender nose are 12 lights: fogs, spots, park lamps and turn lamps flanking the grille, plus four powerful halogen head lamps in pop-up pods. Turn them all on and you look like a 747 coming in for a landing. In the smallish trunk is a comprehensive tool kit built into a slim, elegant-looking attaché case.

As a driving machine, the Lagonda comes across as a creased and flattened Rolls-Royce with Lotus racing blood in its veins. As a rolling statement, it's a sybaritic symbol of unlimited wealth and a giant mechanical membership card to one of the world's most exclusive clubs.

If such opulence lights your fire but you're not quite ready for a $150,000-plus hand-built Aston Martin, consider the Jaguar XJ-S. It's a wonderfully feline four-seater with all the wood and leather luxury almost anyone could want--and, at about $35,000, less than one fourth the price of the Lagonda.

Except for some rare and very expensive exotics (such as Lamborghini's Countach), the XJ-S is easily the most powerful production car in North America and the only one with a V12 engine throbbing under its hood. There are 262 horses to launch the big-cat coupe from rest to 60 mph in less than eight seconds and propel it to 140-mph tops.

But take the Jag off the freeway and pilot it along Mulholland Drive, high above Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, for example, as we did one clear night, and you'll understand why they named it after that powerful and graceful jungle cat. Jaguar has a special touch with suspensions. This is a first-rate four-seat GT that levels uneven pavement and tames treacherous curves without effort.

The XJ-S also has one of the industry's longest standard-equipment lists, plus all of the proper sporting stuff under its smoothly contoured body: fully independent suspension, four-wheel power disc brakes and power rack-and-pinion steering. Also standard is Jaguar's newly earned reputation for quality and reliability, backed by a two-year, 36,000-mile warranty.

Similar in concept but different in execution, and nearly twice as pricy, is the mid-engine 2+2 Ferrari Mondial. This is Ferrari's idea of a high-performance GT for those whose needs have outgrown the beautiful two-seat 308 but who want similar show and go in a more practical package.

The Mondial (pronounced mon-dee-ahl) has been around for a couple of years, but its appeal has increased enormously with a recent series of substantial improvements. First, there's Ferrari's new four-valve-per-cylinder, 235-hp Quattro-valvole V8 engine, with 30 more prancing horses than the two-valve version and 13 percent better fuel efficiency. Second, they've added an upgraded interior with a redesigned console and electronically controlled automatic air conditioning that dehumidifies as it cools. Third, and most important, is a new Cabriolet convertible version.

Ferrari's first full convertible since the 1969 Daytona Spider, the $65,000 Mondial Cabriolet once again offers high-profile open-air motoring, Italian-style. The sophisticated three-liter aluminum engine, the only four-valve V8 in series production, sits crosswise behind the cockpit and drives the rear wheels through a five-speed manual transmission. An obvious thoroughbred even at idle, it wails at speed as only aroused Ferraris can. Top down, its lusty sound blends with the sensory inputs of the wind in your hair and ears.

Once accustomed to the Italian exoticar gated shifter, you can knock off 0-60s in less than eight seconds and watch the 10,000-rpm tachometer rise and fall like a metronome with every shift, approaching, if you dare, the 140-plus top speed. Like the XJ-S, the Mondial conquered our Mulholland Drive challenge without undue drama, accelerating, braking and tracking through the trickiest corners as any race-bred Ferrari is expected to. Although it's unmistakably masculine, its control efforts are light, its responses quick, crisp and precise.

But you don't have to risk your neck and your hefty investment driving hard and fast to enjoy a Ferrari convertible. Cruise it through Beverly Hills and watch heads spin and grins widen with appreciation. Or just park it top down in your garage for a while and drink in the aroma of fine leather every time you walk in.

Most of the world's Beautiful Screamers, though, are true two-seat sports cars, ranging from Porsche's 944 and Chevrolet's Corvette on the low end of the price scale to the Ferrari 512 Berlinetta Boxer and Lamborghini Countach supercars at the six-figure top. Between those extremes lie Porsche's popular 911 Carrera and 928S, Ferrari's ageless 308, Lotus' Turbo Esprit and a cluster of low-volume Italian exotics such as the Maserati Merak, the Lamborghini Jalpa, even a reborn De Tomaso Pantera, an updated version of the car once imported here by Ford's Lincoln-Mercury division.

Most exotic of all is Lamborghini's $99,500 Countach (pronounced coontosh) LP500S. Challenging archrival Ferrari's 12-cylinder Boxer as the fastest production car on the planet, this land-bound rocket was once rumored to be capable of 200 mph. Motivated by a mighty 348-hp, 4.8-liter, aluminum V12 mounted fore and aft behind the seats (with the transmission projecting forward between them)--but slowed by the many anti-aerodynamic protrusions on its otherwise bullet-shaped body--its actual terminal velocity is probably something over 170. Lamborghini of North America, its Torrance, California-based importer, claims 184 mph without the monstrous optional ($5500) rear spoiler, 169 with it; but we never did find out.

Inside the tight-fitting cockpit, the impression is 90 percent race car. Passing over your outside ear and into the wind-shield pillar is a thinly disguised roll-cage tube, part of the unique, fully tubular steel chassis structure. Nestled in a free-standing, hooded rectangular pod is a full set of very serious instruments, including an oil-temperature gauge. The tach reads to 9000 rpm, red-lined at 8000; the speedometer to 200 mph. The carbureted European-spec engine wasn't happy at low rpm (U.S. emissions certification via electronic fuel injection reportedly fixes this), but full-throttle acceleration, once under way, was mind-boggling. From a stop (by our unofficial watch), 60 mph came up in six seconds, 100 in a bit more than 14. Braking and cornering power on our twisty route were awesome.

If the Italian Countach is a roadgoing big-bore Can-Am car, the $50,000 British Lotus Turbo Esprit is Formula I for the street. This is the leanest and lightest of our Beautiful Screamer sampling and the only one powered by fewer than eight cylinders--four, to be exact, turbocharged to 205 galloping horses from its tiny 2.2 liters. With just 2700 pounds to tote, this is enough for the Esprit to match the (concluded on page 186)Beautiful screamerscontinued from page 126) Countach within a few ticks of the watch in 0-60 acceleration and to propel the little flying wedge to a more than adequate 148 mph flat-out.

Lift off the sexy plastic body and much of what's underneath looks straight from a mid-engine "formula" racer--shiny aluminum suspension and frame members, coil springs over tube shocks at all four wheels, inboard disc brakes flanking a rear-mounted transaxle and the gorgeously trimmed engine with its turbo hardware neatly packaged at the left-rear corner. The body itself is the familiar Giugiaro-styled doorstop you may remember as James Bond's submarine car a few years back, made more aggressive and masculine with graceful front and rear spoilers and aerodynamic rocker spats with NACA ducts for rear-brake cooling.

Lotus' road cars, like its Formula I racers, have always been athletically agile, but this is very likely the best one ever. The factory claims an unbelievable 1.05 gs of lateral acceleration (cornering force), but tests have pegged the Turbo Esprit's skid-pad performance at an outstanding but more realistic .85 g, roughly equal to that of the Countach and the Corvette. More important is the feeling it gives when cornering hard. Whether the surface was smooth or rough, our test car produced the best subjective handling of any production automobile we can remember.

On our back-road test course, it took turns posted for 30 mph at 60 to 65 with ease and amazing stability. Although we didn't time it, there was no question it was the fastest car we'd ever tested on our standard hairpin-turn-filled, up-and-down-the-mountain course. The engine thrusted hearitly at all rpms, the nongated shifter was always ready with the proper gear and the narrow (nonadjustable) form-fitting buckets held us securely in place while the tires and suspension did their masterwork. If this sort of controlled craziness is your cup of tea and you've 50 grand burning holes in your money fund, this is your car.

We've saved our bargain-basement Beautiful Screamer for last: the $26,000 Chevrolet Corvette. This slippery-shaped American beauty may be mass-produced in Kentucky, its veteran iron-block engine may not have an overhead cam to its name and it may cost only a fourth of the Countach's six-figure tag, but in the cold gray light of instrument testing, there isn't much it can't do that any of the others can. With multipoint electronic fuel injection coming for '85, the 5.7-liter V8's horse-power jumps from 205 to a healthy 240, 0-60 time falls into the six-second range and top speed climbs to 150-plus. The full electronic instrumentation is improved in usability and readability for the new model year, and the optional Z51 balls-out suspension gets slightly softened for a smoother ride without losing any of its cornering grip.

The Corvette's long, low aerodynamic nose is front-hinged to pivot forward for access to the engine and to the front suspension. Atop the former sit magnesium air-cleaner and rocker covers, while the latter is resplendent in forged aluminum and lightweight steel. Most of the rest of its chassis and power train is a textbook in advanced materials as well, including fiberglass transverse leaf springs front and rear, light-alloy drive shaft and tubular stainless-steel exhaust headers feeding dual free-flow mufflers. Inside, it's a study in video-game instrumentation, with colorful graphic speedometer and tach displays and selectable digital readouts for engine and electrical conditions, plus a driver information system giving instant or average economy and fuel range.

The '84 Corvette was already fast, and its sophisticated fully independent suspension and huge Goodyear Gatorback tires gave incredible smooth-road cornering. For '85, it's not only faster but also softer riding and more directionally stable while cornering hard on not-so-smooth surfaces. As before, the standard power rack-and-pinion steering is race-car quick and so precise it takes getting used to. And the new multipoint injection should improve fuel efficiency, which was already impressive for such a powerful car at 20-plus mpg, even when driven aggressively. All things considered, there's no question that America's Corvette deserves proper respect and recognition among the world's most revered sporting machinery despite its affordable price.

It's hard to imagine a more diverse group of automobiles than these six. Each has its own decidedly distinctive personality and driving character; each makes its own strong statement; each is guaranteed to enhance the image of its lucky driver. Yet, precisely because they have these critical qualities in common--plus eye-grabbing styling, uncommon levels of luxury and world-class performance and handling-all are members in good standing of that most exclusive motoring club, the Beautiful Screamers. Get in line to join.

"Lotus' road cars have always been athletically agile, but this is very likely the best one ever."