Head 2 Head

On this episode of Head 2 Head, Jonny Lieberman and Jethro Bovingdon visit the nearly 800 horsepower club. The Ferrari 812 Superfast and Dodge Challenger Hellcat Redeye might seem worlds apart on paper—and believe us, they are—but they are only separated by 8 horsepower. Beyond that, each car is an Instagram star, the type of vehicle that we all would have had a poster of on our bedroom wall as teenagers. The boys must figure out which almost 800 horsepower car is best via the three Ds—driving, drag racing, and, of course, drifting. Burnouts also play a role because, hey, there’s almost 1,600 horsepower on tap. Which car is the better dream machine? Watch and find out!

On this episode of Head 2 Head, Jethro Bovingdon and Jonny Lieberman go extreme—performance variants of performance variants. The boys already feel that the Porsche GT3 is one of the best sports cars ever made, and the GT3 RS takes things even further. Not to be outdone, the McLaren 600LT is nearly one-quarter modified compared to the 570S it sits on top of. The McLaren has more power and less weight than the Porsche—plus it shoots flames! Has the GT3 RS met its match, or can Porsche find a way? Watch and find out!

On this episode of Head 2 Head, Jethro Bovingdon and Jonny Lieberman go on a European odyssey to find out which sports car is the best: BMW’s mighty mite M2 Competition or the mid-engine, ultralight Alpine A110. BMW’s approach is a classic—stuff a big, powerful engine into a tiny car. Only instead of creating an American-style muscle car, BMW’s M division has given the M2 Competition some athletic dance moves. The diminutive Alpine is the opposite. Weighing in at approximately 1,000 pounds less than the Bimmer, the A110 uses a sophisticated chassis, mid-engine balance, and an attention to detail to make its retro-modern sports car sing. From rally stages to racetracks to perhaps the most wonderful road on earth, Bovingdon and Lieberman put these two European wonders to the test. Which car is best? Watch and find out!

On this episode of Head 2 Head, Jethro Bovingdon and Jonny Lieberman head off the beaten, paved path to look at two of the last hardcore production SUVs left on earth. The Jeep Wrangler was born during the crucible of world war, with General (and later President) Eisenhower calling it “one of three decisive weapons the U.S. had during WWII.” The Wrangler is the original SUV, and all others since are copycats. Massively updated for 2019, the newest Wrangler took home the coveted MotorTrend SUV of the Year award. The Mercedes G-Wagen also began life as a military vehicle, created at the behest of the Shah of Iran in the mid 1970s. Updated for the first time in its 40-year-plus history, the new G is an improvement in almost every way over the old one. So much so that it was given the accolade of a 2019 Automobile All-Star. The question then becomes which one of these old-school, throwback, military-flavored, award-winning SUVs is the best? Watch and find out!

On this episode of Head 2 Head, Jethro Bovingdon and Jonny Lieberman set out to see if the mighty Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio has finally met a car it can’t beat. Ever since its first comparison test, the Ferrari-engined sport sedan has laid waste to the competition. For a very good reason, too: the 505hp Italian is the real deal. Enter Jaguar’s bonkers Project 8. There’s a run of the mill XW sedan lurking somewhere underneath, but you’d be hard-pressed to say where, as 80 percent of the Project 8’s hardware is new. Most importantly, there’s a 592hp supercharged V-8 lurking below all that custom carbon-fiber bodywork and a trick AWD system and fancy racing suspension, too. There’s also the price tag: about $190,000, which is $110,000 more than the Alfa. However, the Project 8 bested the Giulia Q’s Nürburgring Nordschleife lap record, so it is a legit performer. The question is, can the brash British brute dethrone the pretty Italian somewhere besides a racetrack? Which sport sedan is best? Watch and find out!

It’s good to be rich, now more than ever. But with so many brand-new supercars out there, do you really need to replace your 991.1 GT3 RS with the 991.2 version? Actually yes, you do, but that’s beside the point. Maybe what you really need is something old made new—something you loved decades ago that has been re-created for today. Enter the MAT New Stratos, for all intents and purposes a Ferrari F430 Scuderia with nearly 8-inches chopped from the wheelbase. It should handle like a 540hp go-kart, right? Though what if you wanted your retromod whip to be a bit heavier on the retro? How about the Superformance GT40? Fully 75 percent of the parts will swap into a 1960s GT40 (yes—the same cars Matt Damon just made a movie about), only this one has a 640hp supercharged Coyote V-8! But what if both cars are just nostalgic cash grabs? What if a modern supercar is actually the smarter buy? Jethro Bovingdon and Jonny Lieberman hedge their bets by bringing along a 2019 Nissan GT-R Track Edition. Which car is best? Watch this episode of Head 2 Head and find out!

On this episode of Head 2 Head, Jethro Bovingdon and Jonny Lieberman live out their ultimate grand touring fantasies with the help of two big, beautiful, British beasts. Each car has more power than anyone needs, more leather than a cigar lounge, and looks that if they don’t kill, will most certainly wound. The plan? Grand tour the sexy coupes down to watch the 24 Hours of Le Mans, while keeping their thirst for high-powered adventure quenched. The reality? A bit different than the boys planned. Not to give it all away, but can both cars go over 200 miles per hour? Watch and find out!

On this episode of Head 2 Head, Jethro Bovingdon and Jonny Lieberman head south to pit icon against icon—the legendary Ford Mustang Shelby GT350 against one of the most hotly anticipated new cars ever, the fifth-generation Toyota Supra. Starting on the Tail of the Dragon—one of the world’s great roads—the boys set out to discover if the refreshed for 2019 Shelby is better than the one that came before, and also if the new, BMW-built Supra is any good at all. Next, after a quick road trip to Kentucky, Lieberman and Bovingdon take the sports cars drag racing at Beech Bend in Bowling Green. After that, pro shoe Randy Pobst meets them a few miles down the road at NCM Motorsports Park to see how these two cars fare on a racetrack. Which icon is better? Watch and find out!

On this episode of Head 2 Head, Jonny Lieberman and Jethro Bovingdon check out the current state of the hot hatch art. The Honda Civic Type R knocked the front-wheel-drive performance car world on its ear when it debuted a couple years back. How could anything with undriven rear wheels handle and perform so well? In 2018, the Type R finished fourth at Best Driver’s Car, behind the Lamborghini Huracán Performante, Porsche GT2 RS, and McLaren 720S. Not bad for a hot hatch that starts at less than $40,000. Enter the Hyundai Veloster N, which starts at less than $30,000. Many German engineers were recruited for this car and, on paper at least, the baby blue N should give the renowned Honda a run for its money. Bovingdon and Lieberman put both the 2019 Honda and 2020 Hyundai through rigorous Randy Pobst racetrack lapping, as well as canyon road testing. Unable to pick a winner, the boys decide that the ultimate test involves unbridled hooliganism, police chases, and fire. Lots of fire. Which hot hatch is best? Watch and find out!

On this episode of Head 2 Head, Jethro Bovingdon and Jonny Lieberman examine two different ways to solve the same track day problem. On the one hand you have the 2019 Chevy Camaro ZL1 1LE, a middle linebacker of a sports car that’s also a dance major. Developed specifically for the track, this 650hp fist of a car has F1-style spool-valve dampers, crazy, illegal-in-Europe aero, and model-specific R compound tires. On the other hand sits the 2020 Evora GT, a recent iteration of Lotus’ “large” sports car. Weighing around 800 pounds less than the Camaro, the back-seat-delete Evora GT is a modern embodiment of Colin Chapman’s maxim, “simplify and add lightness.” That said, the Lotus is no featherweight, as power is up to a healthy 416 hp. Which of these two seemingly incomparable track day specials is best in this comparison test? Watch and find out!

On this holiday episode of Head 2 Head, Jonny Lieberman and Jethro Bovingdon wring out two honest to goodness super sedans, the BMW M5 Competition and the Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S. These two big Germans sport over 1,200 horsepower between them and are tuned with racetracks and lap times in mind. To find out which four-door is best, Jethro and Jonny travel to Upstate New York in hopes of catching the last bit of fall foliage while tearing up some fabulous country roads. From there the boys head to Connecticut and one of the best tracks in the country, if not the world, Lime Rock. Once there, they examine the nuances of AWD versus RWD. And by nuances we mean big power slides and tons of tire smoke. Which sedan proves to be the most super? Watch and find out!