DRIFT THIS

Do you think it’s safe to test?”

Stoic testing director Kim Reynolds looked even more serious than normal as he loomed over my desk.

“Kim,” I responded, “I think they drifted it, for what I imagine was at least an hour of filming. It didn’t break—or tip over. We can do our routine tests.”

But he persisted, pondering, as Kim does, about the physics involved with stopping from 60 mph a 4,300-pound car with 26-inch wheels (that’s a lot of rotational mass) or sending it down a dragstrip for the first time in its existence (concerned it could break U-joints or the driveshaft trying to get those giant wheels rotating and the car moving from a standstill). Then there’s the part where Kim’s noggin really starts buzzing, about the eventuality of repeatedly throwing this 6-foot-5-inch-tall sedan into alternating left-right 100-foot-radius turns on our figure-eight course.

“Where’s the weakest