Warren Brown is the Washington Post‘s erudite, highly idiosyncratic automobile writer. Many readers, including me, appreciate his enthusiasm for cars and his witty, engaging style. Many of his columns are more informative about Warren Brown than the car under review, but that’s fine because he’s an interesting fellow who writes well. Sometimes, however, his clutch seems to slip and the gears of his conflicting opinions fail to mesh smoothly.
Two days ago, for example, writing about his drive from Northern Virginia to New York City in a 2013 Kia Rio SX sedan, Brown seemed quite pleased:
I motored up from my home in Northern Virginia at the median highway speed of 75 mph in a car with a 1.6-liter, gasoline-direct-injection in-line four-cylinder engine (136 horsepower, 123 pound-feet of torque). If “fun to drive” means driving as fast as you want to drive, or legally dare to, I had lots of fun. And the drive was made even more enjoyable when I reached New York’s city limits, some 300 miles north of the Virginia residence, with the fuel gauge showing the Kia Rio’s 11.4-gallon tank still half full.
Lots of fun? Brown must have had a major mental tune-up — perhaps even a complete re-wiring job — since he made that same trip a couple of months ago in a 2013 Audi S5 Quattro:
NEW YORK — It was a joyful drive, nearly 300 miles from my home in Northern Virginia to this throbbing city.
It was an instructive drive, too….
Driving long distances in a non-turbocharged, non-supercharged four-cylinder critter is akin to pulling a sackcloth bag full of sand up and down sand dunes. It is wearying.
By comparison, driving this week’s subject automobile, the 2013 Audi S5 Quattro coupe, equipped with a supercharged 3-liter V-6 (333 horsepower, 325 pound-feet of torque), constitutes effortless joy. The new S5 moves so smoothly and fast, you dread reaching your destination. You just want to keep moving.
Expensive? You bet. Requires premium gas? Of course. But:
It is worth it, in much the manner that paying more to sleep in a first-class hotel room can be a better deal than paying less to sleep in a barely third-class inn. You close your eyes in both. But you do so with more comfort and peace of mind in first class than you do in third. And the overall effect on your demeanor is remarkable. You feel vibrant!
Maybe this is not as contradictory as it seems. Maybe “pulling a sackcloth bag full of sand up and down sand dunes,” though “wearying,” can still be “lots of fun.” If a president can get away with saying it all depends on what the meaning of “is” is, then a poor ink-stained wretch laboring in the same city should be allowed to fiddle with the definition of fun.
