Top Speed

PAGANI. PAGANI? SI, SI, PAGANI!

After 14 years as the auto industry’s House of Fabergé, Pagani Automobili has built the paltry sum of 132 cars, just shy of Ferrari’s output every two weeks. Most are the original Zonda, with just 10 of the new, U.S.-bound Huayras yet in existence. Judging from the interrogations we received while stuck behind a massive wreck on the autostrada only 10 minutes from Pagani’s Modena, Italy, headquarters, that’s not enough to sear the brand into the consciousness of the locals, who are accustomed to seeing Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, and Ducati test vehicles tearing up their streets.

Horacio Pagani’s customers—an all-hands meeting wouldn’t make a decent lunch rush at a Denny’s—don’t seem to mind the brand’s obscurity. If you can peel off an easy million for a new Huayra, which starts at 849,000 euros or, when it arrives later this year, the spot-exchange equivalent in dollars, chances are good you own a lot of stuff that Italian truck drivers have never heard of.

To be sure, Modena is a tough town to make a splash in. But the Huayra (pronounced WHY-ra) has the requisite assets. It’s not just that it’s flagrantly gorgeous even while dragging its belly over an Italian speed hump. Or that it is adorned with fascinating details, from its soybean-sprout mirrors to the four titanium Inconel peashooters in back. Or that the carbon fiber’s clear coat looks deep enough to do 10-meter platform dives into.

And it isn’t just the beguiling movement of the Huayra’s motorized body surfaces that constantly lift and tuck like an F-16’s flaperons with the goal of reducing body roll and stopping distances. Or the  720-hp, 6.0-liter twin-turbo V-12, the old single-cam three-valver from the S65, custom built for Pagani by Mercedes-Benz AMG and anodized to a gilded fare-thee-well to resemble the Ark of the Covenant. Or even the cockpit with its bionic-Bauhaus sculptures in cut aluminum that make the driver feel like Lucky Starr chasing the Pirates of the Asteroids.

What really makes the Huayra startling is that all of its highly cultivated (and, in some cases, efficaciously questionable) flair pulls together to make a stupendous road car. The level of lateral grip, the triple-digit stability, and the braking and steering control give this Beaux-Arts glamour boat the muscle to mix it up with the cars from Brand F and Brand L. Think Le Mans prototype with carpeting and license-plate mounts.

Ford once wanted us to spell the name of its doomed electric-car concern as Th!nk. That makes Volkswagen’s mandate of an exclamation point on its “up!” city car seem less grammatically absurd. Still, we’re putting typographic cheekiness aside and rendering it Up.

Cuteness, typographic or otherwise, is the norm in little city runabouts. Invariably, they project a sort of sexless kookiness. But this European-market city car, down one cylinder and more than seven inches of length to a Mini, is a product of typically sober VW. Its comes by its cuteness less overtly. With its 15-inch wheels pushed all the way to the corners, the Up looks improbably simple, as if sketched as a cartoon. Children’s book creator Richard Scarry might have drawn the happy Up, no doubt being driven by a smiling cat wearing lederhosen.

Our smiles while driving the Up weren’t as broad, but we were smitten with its cool charm, its clown-car-like feats of packaging, and its ambience, which is not at all chintzy. It’s a refreshingly honest little box of transportation, which VW won’t bring to the States anytime soon because the car is far too sensible. There’s nothing revolutionary about the Up. It follows the basic blueprint that the original Mini laid down more than a half-century ago. Simply tuck the tiny 74-hp, 999-cc engine into the front pocket of this 2029-pound commuter, and leave the rest to package the flesh of adult humans.

Naturally, the Up is very slow (11.8 seconds to 60 mph), and its skinny tires struggle to hold 0.80 g on the skidpad. But the Up feels nimble, lithe, and unburdened. And this city car isn’t intimidated by interstates, where it is unusually stable and quiet for a squirt. The only econo-car nastiness is the traditional three-cylinder vibration that runs through the primary controls.

The Up returned 36 mpg in mixed driving, splitting the difference between B-segment cars we’ve tested and small hybrids.

In 1994, Toyota wrote a love letter to the AARP and called it Avalon. A stretched Camry, the Avalon replicated the classic American car with a vast rear seat, a column shifter, and a front bench seat. Even the name served up a warm bowl of nostalgia, simultaneously conjuring up the old movie house on Main Street, Hugh Downs, and a backrub from Jessica Tandy. Soft, comfortable, and spacious, the Avalon chased the Big Three right down the big-car rabbit hole.

Toyota is now maintaining that the new, redesigned 2013 Avalon is a car for those who have yet to notice their first liver spot. It’s worth noting that Toyota made that same claim in 2005 after slipping a 3.5-liter V-6 into the contemporary Avalon; we welcomed the extra power, but the car’s soft suspension and casual roll control failed to connect. That didn’t stop us from giving the ’05 Avalon a comparison-test win against some admittedly ineffectual competition. But the recycled claim that this new Avalon isn’t just for old folks may actually hold water: Its chassis has been slipped a Viagra, there’s an emphasis on driver involvement, and the styling marks a clean break from yesteryear’s examples.

Trimmed and Toned

The exterior design seems to borrow from a number of sources, including Hyundai, Lexus, and Infiniti—and its grille placement and shape recalls that of the second-gen Chrysler Sebring—but the net effect is a sedan that doesn’t immediately conjure images of applesauce and cribbage. That’s a good thing. On the driving front, the stiffened suspension keeps body roll in check, and the previous car’s acceleration squat and earth-plowing dive under hard braking are things of the past. The steering now requires effort, and even more weight can be dialed in by hitting the Sport button located between the seats. Jack LaLanne himself would be pleased by the Avalon’s transformation from flabby and sloppy to tight and athletic.

Power remains the same at 268 hp, but muscle was never the Avalon’s problem. The familiar 3.5-liter V-6 and six-speed automatic are standard and carry over from the outgoing car. Paddle shifters are fitted to the top two trims, the Avalon Touring and Limited. The previous car hit 60 mph in 6.6 seconds when we tested it a couple of summers ago, and the new Avalon should easily match or beat that time despite having a taller final-drive ratio because weight is down by approximately 100 pounds, according to Toyota. The structure is stiffer than that of the previous version, too, which has helped make powertrain, suspension, and road noise even more hushed than before—and decidedly Lexus-like. We had a chance to sample new and old models back-to-back, and the latest Avalon feels more modern, more solid, quieter, and more expensive.

Riding in Style

The redesigned interior represents a massive upgrade. Leather upholstery covers the seats in every Avalon, and a vinyl-wrapped dashboard gives the appearance of real hide. Opt for the grey or tan interior and there are contrasting colors throughout. At night, ambient lighting glows out of the base of the dashboard, à la Mercedes-Benz S-class. The Avalon’s 111-inch wheelbase is unchanged, yet rear legroom is down 1.7 inches due to the rear chairs being moved slightly forward to coexist with the sloping, contemporary roofline. Riders will find that the rear seat remains large and comfortable, though; Toyota believes it’s spacious enough to test the waters of the livery market with the new model (orders accepted for black cars only, please).