C O S TA M O U Z O U R I S

I S L E O F M A N Despite having knowledge of the Audi TT and the designation of the twinned letters in its name, I never knew of the connection between the German coupe and the famed Tourist Trophy motorcycle races held annually on the Isle of Man.

The Isle of Man Tourist Trophy road race was first held in 1907 and it’s considered to be the most dangerous motorsports event, certainly by today’s standards. The race is held on the 60.7-kilo-metre Mountain Course, which is a circuit that uses public roads that wind through hills, forests, and villages, and possessing land-mark names such as Ballaugh Bridge, Gob-ny-Geay and Hail-wood Rise. The event attracts the fringe of motorcycle racers and riders who take much higher risks than those competing on purpose-built circuits; there’s no run-off throughout most of the TT course, which is often lined by stone walls, trees and houses.

A 19-kilometre section of the Mountain Course, between the Hairpin and Creg-ny-Baa, was cordoned off exclusively for the launch of the refreshed 2019 Audi TTS. It’s the first time a por-tion of the race circuit has been closed for something other than a race. The reason we’re test-ing the new TTS here is because Audi has ties to some early Tour-ist Trophy victories.

The Audi TT is 20 years old this year, and it was originally named to pay homage to early successes on the island. Face-lifted for 2019, the sporty TTS coupe we’re driving gets subtle changes in

the grille and air inlets, while the rear bumper now has some air vents in the sides. It’s powered by a 2.0-litre turbo-four that produces 302 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque — an increase of 10 hp and 15 lb-ft over the outgoing model — and is capable of propelling the TTS from zero to 100 km/h in 4.5 seconds. A more significant pow-ertrain change is an added ratio in a new dual-clutch gearbox; it now has seven speeds and is standard on the TTS. A six-speed manual is still standard on the TT, with the dual-clutch avail-able as an option.

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the TT, Audi will also produce 999 special-edition TT 20 Years versions, with sev-eral detail highlights, including moccasin-brown Nappa leather interior, numbered badges, stain-less tailpipes and grey paint, and a few other unique touches.

We’re to run the closed sec-tion of the Mountain Course backwards first, beginning at Creg-ny-Baa, and then turning around at the Hairpin, where we will run it in its proper direction for the return trip. Organizers have installed 14 marshalling stations along the course, mak-ing it feel like a race, though we are reminded during the driv-ers’ meeting that it is not. For safety, a 145 km/h speed limit is imposed. We’re also led by one of Audi’s hired guns, who maintains a blistering pace.

The TTS is placed in Dynamic mode for the drive, the other choices being Auto, Comfort or Efficiency. Dynamic sets the throttle response to its most

aggressive, and firms up the steering and magnetic ride suspension. While it also holds gears longer for aggressive driv-ing in automatic mode, I kept the gear selector to the right from Drive, in manual mode, to allow gear changes using the steering wheel-mounted paddles.

Immediately from the start we get hard on the gas, and the new seven-speed shifts gears with almost no delay after hitting the paddles, while the clutches are tuned to provide quick gear

changes. Closer ratios help keep the engine spinning in the sweet spot of its powerband.

Not being on a purpose-built racetrack makes driving at speed much more challenging, and demands much sharper focus, since the layout isn’t imprinted in your mind from lapping sever-al times. Former Tourist Trophy winner and Isle of Man resident Richard (Milky) Quayle is also present, giving a few pointers on how to negotiate the challenging and fast course.

Make a mistake here and you’re either sailing into a rocky field, bouncing off a stone wall, or smashing into a tree, none of which have desirable outcomes. This emphasizes the TTS’s well-balanced chassis and forgiving power band.

Acceleration is hard but not overwhelming, and the well-weighted steering follows commands precisely as we take proper racing lines and use up the entire width of the road.

While I’ve driven very fast on a racetrack before, I’ve never before driven on public roads as fast as here at the Isle of Man. This drive has given me a new-found respect for those who compete here, as well as a renewed affinity for Audi’s refreshed sports coupe. I’d never attempt driving like this on a road that’s not closed to regular traffic.

The 2019 Audi TT models will arrive at dealers in the first quar-ter of next year, and pricing will be announced closer to arrival. The current TT coupe starts at $53,100 and the TTS at $63,400.Driving.ca

F I R S T D R I V E : 2 0 1 9 A U D I T T S

COUPE CAN HANDLE NAMESAKE COURSERefreshed model makes quick work of a fast, dangerous stretch of racing route

The 2019 Audi TTS — the TT stands for Tourist Trophy — feels fast and secure making its way through the Isle of Man’s Mountain Course, site of the world-famous motorcycle race.  P H O T O S : C O S TA S M O U Z O U R I S

The 2019 Audi TTS is powered by a 2.0-litre turbo four-cylinder engine.  

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J I L M C I N T O S H

General Motors closed Oldsmo-bile just as it was turning out some of its most interesting cars in years. Saab’s premature death nixed its awesome, then-new 9-5. And now, Ford’s decision to go all truck and sport ute will likely kill off the best Fusion I’ve driven.

While Ford Canada won’t dish out all the details just yet, word is that in light of falling car sales and rising light truck purchases, every car but the Mustang will hit the boneyard within the next couple of years. So if you want a Fusion — and judging by the Sport, you just might — you better grab one soon.

Ford’s mid-size sedan comes in three flavours, all of them with turbocharged EcoBoost engines. The base is a 1.5-litre four-cylin-der making 181 horsepower, while the mid-range 2.0-L four makes 245 hp. Top of the pops is my tes-ter, the Sport, with a 2.7-L V-6.

Fast costs, of course. While you can get a Fusion for as low as $23,988, the Sport — which comes only with all-wheel drive — is $43,388. That can feel a bit high, given the car’s handsome but kind of plain-Jane interior, but that’s also pretty much all-in, since the Sport comes with all the toys already installed. My tester’s only add-on was its extra-charge coat of red paint. You’ve paid for the swift, and that’s what you get. This engine is lovely and has some extremely impressive numbers: 325 horsepower, along with 380 pound-feet of torque. That’s some serious muscle for this usually staid model, putting it in the running against some of the sportier sedans offered by premium automakers.

What’s even better is that the rest of this Fusion is designed around that meaty powerband. Hooking the crankshaft to a six-speed automatic may seem almost primitive at a time when eight to 10 speeds are rapidly becoming the norm, but you get smooth power delivery without hunting for gears. Steering wheel-mounted paddle shifters are stan-dard, but could react a tick faster when you want to sequentially shift the gears yourself.

The all-wheel system is front-biased — two-wheel-drive Fusion models drive only the front wheels — but it seamlessly sends power to the rear as needed, including on acceleration. The adaptive suspension constantly monitors the road and driving habits, firming up or softening as needed for ride and handling. It includes pothole mitigation, a sensor-based system that Ford says can detect the instant a tire hits the edge of a pothole and tightens up so the wheel doesn’t fall as far into the abyss as it would otherwise. Braking is smooth, linear, and very effective.

The dial-style shifter includes a button for Sport mode, which is where the Fusion really comes alive. Throttle and transmission response quicken, the already-well-weighted steering gains a bit more heft, the suspension hunkers into its firmer settings, and there’s more engine growl.

Most ‘sport’ mid-size sedans come with premium badges, but this Fusion legitimately earns the name. It’s quick and agile in the corners, takes off like a rocket on straight stretches, and is genu-inely fun to drive. You need to add premium fuel to get the full horsepower, but in combined driving I hit its published fuel economy figure of 11.8 L/100 kilometres, which seemed a fair trade-off for all the fun I had.

It’s a good-looking ride, too, and the styling cues that mark it as a Sport are subtle — black grille, larger air intakes, rear spoiler and quad exhaust tips — rather than over-the-top as some can be.

The interior is roomy front and rear, and the supportive sport seats are clad in a combination of leather and perforated faux-suede fabric, with heating and cooling functions on the 10-way power-adjustable front ones. It

also includes most of the fea-tures you’d expect for the price: dual-zone climate control, rain-sensing wipers, a heated steer-ing wheel and adaptive cruise control. Its self-parking feature gets you into perpendicular or parallel spots although, as with virtually all of these systems, it takes much longer than putting it in the lines yourself.

Many of the climate-system controls are buttons, including for the seats, although you must go into the SYNC3 infotainment system to adjust the vent settings if you don’t opt for automatic climate control. Navigation is included and its voice activation works really well. That said, I live

near the 22-kilometre eastern extension of Ontario’s 407 toll highway, and as with a few sys-tems from various automakers, the Fusion’s navigation system doesn’t recognize its existence, even though it’s been open for

three years. I know it’s all third-party map data, but if I’m buying a 2018 vehicle, I’d like it to have 2018 smarts. Ford may make most of its money selling trucks, but it understands speed and per-formance, and the Fusion Sport

is evidence of that. It’s fast and fun, smooth and comfortable. If everything that isn’t a crossover, truck or Mustang gets tossed, I think I’m going to miss this one the most.Driving.ca

R O A D T E S T : F O R D F U S I O N S P O R T

MID-SIZE SEDAN A FAST, FUN RIDE While cars may be on way out, this model proves Ford knows speed and performance

The 2018 Ford Fusion Sport has subtle sporty styling cues, including a black grille, larger air intakes, rear spoiler and quad exhaust tips.  J I L M C I N T O S H

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G R A E M E F L E T C H E R

P A D E R B O R N , G E R M A N Y The mid-cycle refresh of the Mercedes-AMG C 63 brings a new grille and, on the S models, a function-al rear diffuser. Of course, there are macho fenders, side sills and a discrete lip spoiler to empha-size the look. Likewise, the cabin has been tweaked to keep it in touch with the times. The result delivers both a more menac-ing outward appearance and a classier cockpit. For 2019, the lineup has also been streamlined: While the sedan will be offered in both C 63 and C 63 S variants, the Coupe and Cabrio arrive in S guise only.

The 63 S’s cabin now has richer materials and a new flat-bot-tomed steering wheel with two black mouse-like Touch Con-trol buttons. The right button looks after the central Comand infotainment functions; the left sees to the information displayed in the instrumentation, which includes a boost gauge. Some very serious AMG Performance seats (optional) deliver fabulous lateral support

Also new is the AMG Track Pace app, which allows drivers to record their performances around a race track and then use the stored data to find out where precious tenths of a second were lost or found. The track layout is shown in the central display with sector times appearing in the dash. The sublime 4.0-litre, bi-turbo V-8 in the base form pushes 469 horsepower and 479 pound-feet of torque, which give the sedan a run to 100 kilometres an hour in 4.1 seconds. Opting for the S model bumps the output to 503 hp and 516 lb-ft of torque at 2,500 rpm. This, in the coupe, drops the run to 3.9 seconds and bumps the top speed from the C 63 sedan’s 250 km/h to 290 km/h.

What would an AMG be without the requisite exhaust note? The C 63 has it in spades. It snaps and snarls like a rabid dog on startup and can be tailored to suit the driving situation. It either slides by discretely when in stealth mode or it can be amped up to give it the sort of basso profundo that makes the little hairs on the back of your neck bristle. It sounds simply marvellous.

The pity is that the wagon will not make it to Canada. Not only does it have more versatility, it amps up the exhaust sound because there is no parcel shelf blocking its access to the cabin.

Both engines use a new nine-speed automatic transmission with a wet start-off clutch in lieu of a traditional torque converter. The clutch brings a faster launch and quicker shifts. It drives the rear wheels through a new elec-tronically controlled limited-slip rear differential. Unlike most, it does not rely on brake interven-tion to work. Rather the differ-ential is locked proactively so there is less wasted energy when hauling out of a fast corner and it improves acceleration perfor-mance.

All models get an air suspen-sion with adaptive damping. It brings supreme control, softening a rough road while keeping body roll to an absolute minimum. On the drive, it just hunkered down and focused on keeping the tester’s P285/30R20 rear tires glued to the tarmac.

Everything from the engine and transmission to the suspen-sion, steering and exhaust can be tweaked.

There are six drive modes: Slippery, Comfort, Sport, Sport+, Race and Individual. Each alters the tone and ferocity of the drive. Slippery makes the C 63 S meek and mild. Sport+ brings out the inner tiger with delayed upshifts, a quicker throttle response and a firmer no-nonsense ride. Race is best saved for track days when wearing a skid-lid (that’s a helmet for all of you non-track types).

Individual mode is a little dif-

ferent. As well as being able to select comfort or dynamic for engine, transmission, suspension and so on, it allows the driver to select the underlying mode. Around the Bilster Berg race track, the C 63 S sedan proved to be about a subtle as a sledgeham-mer in a silk purse. It may appear demure and collected on the outside, but underneath every piece of technology is working frantically to keep it glued to the tarmac and obeying driver input with a keenness just not expected of a family conveyance. It was truly tenacious through the corners and a beauty of a brute on the straights. Merciful-ly, the massive composite front rotors and four-piston calipers

scrubbed off excess speed with-out fading into oblivion.

One of the more entertaining moments occurred when verify-ing the acceleration times. Mash-ing the gas from a standstill made the C 63 S’s traction-control light flash because of the tremendous surge of mid-range torque. It

is not easy to overwhelm warm P285/30R20 rear tires on a perfectly dry road, but the C 63 S sure did, and it did so time and time again. The reworked C 63 is blindingly quick, dynamically endowed and equally luxurious. Regardless of whether you are ripping up your local race track

or out grocery shopping, this car gets it done in fine style.

The pricing has yet to be announced, but if Mercedes-AMG follows previous introduc-tions, the new C 63 should not stray too far from the 2018 mod-els and respective trim levels.Driving.ca

F I R S T D R I V E : 2 0 1 9 M E R C E D E S - A M G C 6 3

IT’S A FINE MIXTURE OF STYLE AND SUBSTANCERefreshed sedan and convertible can hit 100 km/h in four seconds

The 2019 Mercedes-AMG C 63 will be available as either a sedan, coupe or convertible.  G R A E M E F L E T C H E R

B8 T U E S D AY, J U LY 3 1 , 2 0 1 8 S A S K AT O O N S TA R P H O E N I X D R I V I N G

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