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DAY TWO - THE FASTER CURVES OVER HILL AND VALLEY

If the first day was a warm-up just to get us to the good stuff in central France, Day Two of my McLaren MP4-12C odyssey was one type of pure sports car touring pleasure. The sun was everywhere, the roads were pure entertainment, and the five test cars glowed through the daylight hours.

I'm not talking about encountering a wild series of hairpins, mind you, but rather higher speed roads nonetheless filled with satisfying curves and stunning countryside. First, however, right at the start of the day's driving leg, I had a stop at the former grand prix circuit Reims-Gueux.

This more or less 7.8-km long (4.8-mile) circuit was extremely fast and therefore dangerous, given that in its earlier layout before 1951 it was essentially a triangle with three sharp right-handers and three very long straights to get you into trouble quickly should something go wrong. From 1954 through its closure in 1972, the circuit was reconfigured to an even faster 8.3 kms (5.2 mi). The main straight is nowadays actually the busy two-lane highway RN31 and the entire grandstand is still there on one side, the well-kept pit area on the other. Here and there around the pit structure is stenciled a beautiful sentiment: "Memoire des pilotes, respect du site." France is a nation not unknown for its abundant graffiti, but there is none of it to be seen here.

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1,000 miles in the McLaren MP4-12C: Day Two originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 04 Jul 2012 11:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jaguar XF diesel cross-country tour

The first diesel Jaguar XF has arrived in the United States. But it's not destined for a showroom, and it's not headed to a waiting customer. No, Jaguar has slightly more ambitious plans for this particular oil-burning sedan.

The 2.2-liter diesel four will propel this XF on a cross-country journey that will take it from New York to Los Angeles - a trip across eleven states covering 2,800 miles - over the course of seven days. The goal is to see how far the car can travel on a single tank of fuel, and follows a similar exercise undertaken in Europe that took a different XF diesel across 816 miles from Castle Bromwich in the UK to Munich, Germany, on a single tank, returning an average of 57 miles per gallon on the EU cycle.

Observers can track this trip's progress on the company's Facebook page and Twitter feed, and we'll be sure to report on the venture's results once it's reached the Pacific coast. Details in the press release after the jump.

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Jaguar driving diesel XF across the U.S. originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 11 Nov 2011 07:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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