---
title: "What’s The Drive Driving? Week of Oct. 16, 2015"
description: "Subways are overrated. Let's take the Ferrari."
date: "2015-10-16"
modified: "2021-05-09"
authors:
  - name: "The Drive Staff"
    link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/the-drive-staff"
url: "https://www.thedrive.com/new-cars/539/whats-the-drive-driving-week-of-oct-16-2015"
categories:
  - "Car Reviews"
---

# What’s The Drive Driving? Week of Oct. 16, 2015

![](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/images-by-url-td/content/archive-images/drivedriving_101615_ferrari499_hero.jpg>)
*\<em\>www.thedrive.com</em>*

Wherein we show you what our writers and editors are pushing around the block—or around the world.

**2006 Triumph Speed Triple**

![drivedriving\_101615\_triumph\_art.jpg](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/content/archive-images/drivedriving_101615_triumph_art.jpg>)
**EDOUARD PORTELETTE/THEDRIVE.COM**

My Triple and I have been separated for six weeks. Early August, after a nice ride from the Poconos, she massively overheated in the Lincoln Tunnel and died.

Very poor timing on my part, as all garages in a 50-mile radius were overloaded, and September is often the best time of the year to ride. What can you do? It rained a lot, which helped me stay patient.

I got the beast back on Saturday, and it was the perfect make-up. She was as new. Temps were holding at 70 F. Sunshine. Rest of the afternoon is history.—*Edouard Portelette, vice president of business operations, advertising*

**2016 Land Rover Range Rover Sport Autobiography**

![drivedriving\_101615\_range\_art.jpg](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/content/archive-images/drivedriving_101615_range_art.jpg>)
**BRETT BERK/THEDRIVE.COM**

The point of the most upscale version of this smaller Range Rover, the Sport, is exclusivity. But if you live in Manhattan, like I do, on a downtown block occupied by a children's art museum, you're shit out of luck. Fancy mommies drive—or are driven—down from Westchester or the Upper East Side in their [Range Rovers](<https://www.thedrive.com/new-cars/255/the-2016-range-rover-td6-is-the-best-diesel-not-currently-under-epa-recall>) daily, like an army of invading ants, double-parking for hours while their cashmered children are edified and artified. When I parked on the street recently, there were two other, $102,000 slate grey Ranges just like mine.

Still, if you need to transport three college friends and their extensive costume baggage to a weekend wedding in Philly, you could find worse conveyances. Soft leather, a complaint ride, gobs of cargo space and just enough obnoxious ostentation (and supercharged V8) to make peeling out of a valet spot on Rittenhouse Square a real occasion, not to mention an ideal form of alienating the bride's hipster-than-thou friends. "This isn't my car," the tire smoke says. "It's a costume. But it fits."—*Brett Berk, writer-at-large*

**2016 Ferrari 488 Spider**

![drivedriving\_101615\_ferrari488\_art.jpg](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/content/archive-images/drivedriving_101615_ferrari488_art.jpg>)
**Lawrence Ulrich/thedrive.com**

Romance is always in the air in a Ferrari, never more than in Italy. But even in Emilia-Romagna, in the thick of a Sangiovese vineyard-cum-spa, I’m determined to resist a 661-horsepower come-on from that pneumatic hussy, the turbocharged [488 Spider](<https://www.thedrive.com/new-cars/531/love-and-breakups-in-a-ferrari-488-spider>). Ignoring those out-to-here hips, painted in the latest Blu Corsa fashion; trying not to get lost in the dusky caverns of the side air intakes. Read more [here](<https://www.thedrive.com/new-cars/531/love-and-breakups-in-a-ferrari-488-spider>).—*Lawrence Ulrich, chief auto critic*

**2015 Dodge Durango Citadel AWD**

![drivedriving\_101615\_durango\_art.jpg](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/content/archive-images/drivedriving_101615_durango_art.jpg>)
**Jonathan Schultz/thedrive.com**

After bombing Queens potholes all weekend in this close relation of the Jeep Grand Cherokee, I got around to checking the Monroney—that new-car sticker, required by law, that enumerates just how much a second-row console with armrest and storage costs ($300). The line at the bottom, “TOTAL PRICE: $49,875,” led to a pregnant moment or five of contemplation.

Here was a handsome, spacious, fully kitted SUV (Rear DVD Entertainment Center! Heated leather seats! All manner of forward/backward/blind-spot detection and warning chimes!) for roughly $25,000 less than a comparably equipped, comparably sized Audi Q7 3.0L. Sure, the eight-speed automatic tended to upshift hard from first to second, and the interior plastics befitted those of a lowly Dart. But whatever knocks against the Durango paled in proportion to its attributes.

So far, so bargain.

Caveat. The liftgate bore the bolted-on badge “Citadel,” reflecting the name of the Durango’s topmost equipment group. The badge transformed the SUV into a “fortress on wheels,” as Dodge’s consumer site [noted](<https://www.dodge.com/en/durango/model_details/#model=citadel&year=2015>). I have no delusions about the necessity of a standing army and the essential role our nation’s military academies play in creating leaders for battlefields and boardrooms alike; being the son of a Vietnam veteran will do that. The question is whether consumers who’d otherwise not slap a “Proud USMC Dad” bumper sticker on the liftgate—as I spotted on another Durango Citadel during my weekend ramblings—might balk at the name.

Overthinking it? Wouldn’t be the first time. The Durango is a pretty finely wrought thing, though, its red taillamp tracery reading more Stuttgart than South Carolina, its manner composed on all road surfaces and its acres of sound-deadening material ensuring a quiet ride. A peaceable kingdom of an SUV.—*Jonathan Schultz, deputy editor*

**2016 Porsche Cayenne E-hybrid**

![drivedriving\_101615\_porchecayenne\_art.jpg](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/content/archive-images/drivedriving_101615_porchecayenne_art.jpg>)
**Mike Guy/thedrive.com**

Porsche tells me the top speed of this spicy plug-in electric E-Hybrid SUV in "E-Power" mode is 78 mph. That's a lot, maybe even more than I needed on Saturday, when I loaded up the Porsche with a wife, two young kids and a full basket of clean towels (for wiping up what my daughter calls "bleh"). Then I went a-carving on the country roads in the Hudson Valley. Do I have any affection at all for hybrid cars? Nope. Will this Porsche change my mind?

Not really. I've driven probably two dozen of them, maybe three, and not a one was all that memorable for the hybrid performance. This one had a hell of a kick, though. I ran along in E-Power, a silent SUV on a wooded lane, and then stomped the throttle, kicking the 3-liter supercharged V6 to life. The two engines combine for 420 or so horsepower—enough to get the kids puking and make my wife very angry. This Cayenne is around $100,000.

Sunday is laundry day.—*Mike Guy, editor*

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