Does music turn a drive into a journey? It’s something that struck me last weekend, as I found myself piloting the Polo R-Line along a short stretch of road from Crakehall to Catterick in North Yorkshire. It’s the one highlighted in blue on the image below: It’s a road I’ve driven a few times, but…
Category: Editorial
Audi R8 V10 Plus Advert
This is quite possibly the best TV advert I’ve seen in sometime: Celebrating that the Audi R8 V10 now comes with the S-tronic gearbox, this video is just superb. The whip crack violence of each upshift is immense, tempered only be the spine-tingling downshifts with accompanying flames. Audi, if i win Euromillions tonight, you’ve got…
Volkswagen’s Crazy Power-Pickup Amorak Concept
If you hadn’t noticed, and it has been kept well hidden, EngageSportMode is a little bit of a fan of Volkswagens. ESM also happens to be a fan of pickup trucks, stemming from a lifelong aim to own a Dodge Ram or other huge American truck. So the unveiling of the Amarok by VW a…
That Pirelli Tyre Debacle – 2013 Spanish Grand Prix Fallout
If you happen to follow EngageSportMode on twitter, if you don’t remedy that first, you’ll have noticed a steady stream of Pirelli tyre-related lolz on Sunday. The Spanish Grand Prix at Catalunya has rarely been one to set pulses racing, managing to generally rate slightly above Hungary for excitement. But the 2013 race proved to…
New Volkswagen up! Special Editions
EngageSportMode is a genuine fan of the Volkswagen up!. When we tested the base-model Take up! last year, we were hugely impressed with its value for money, perky performance and VW quality. We suggested that should you want a new city-car, you had no other viable option. It’s also worth pointing out that we were…
BMW M6 Gran Coupe – Dial M for Marketing?
EngageSportMode has a little bit of a love/hate relationship with BMW. Hate is, probably, too strong a word. Instead try an underlying suspicion that it is selling its values up the river slightly. For every car such as the 1M Coupe, M135i or Z4 comes something like the X6, 5-Series GT or 6-Series Gran Coupe….
As I Was Saying….
Some of you may have been wondering if ESM had been on a little bit of a hiatus for the past few weeks. If so, you’d be correct. Not to put to fine a point on it, but a person with a huge responsibility for my love for all things automotive has been through a very tough, challenging…
A quick note on the name
Engage Sport Mode wasn’t intended to be the first choice for this blog. Anyway, I thought about other car type names (which weren’t already taken) and settled on EngageSportMode. This comes from the days of my very first car which had a massive 50bhp. Shouting “Engage sport mode” meant to close the windows, turn off the…
Welcome to EngageSportMode
Hello, hi, how are ya, bonjour, and so forth. This is my new toy; a blog designed to let me vent my feelings about all things automotive and related stuff. I don’t profess to be a professional car journalist, I am merely an opinionated amateur. There are hundreds if not thousands of similar blogs in…
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