THE RUNDOWN An expert look at the newest and most important vehicles this month. The ongoing brawl over R ratings continues on page 70.
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Dream Maker
For its first trick, Lucid pulls an 1111-hp sedan out of thin air.
Tape measure in hand, Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson is in the driver’s-side
footwell of his company’s Air Dream, measuring the distance from the brake pedal to the rear seatback. It’s a nontraditional dimension that Rawlinson, a former Lotus and Tesla engineer, uses to assess interior space, and he’s out to prove that his company’s new electric car hit one of its targets. The design of Lucid’s first car, which has yet to reach a customer, is born of two goals he set: It should have the interior space of the Mercedes-Benz S-class, and it should handle like a Lotus. The metal tape crackles as it bends through the cabin, and CAR A N D DR IV ER ~ DECEmb ER 202 1 ~ P HOTOG RA PH Y bY JESSI CA LY NN WALKER
we get the number: 83.1 inches, a few more than what he measured in the S-class. We’ve now driven the 1111-hp Air Dream P (the P is for Performance). At an estimated 5200 pounds, it’ll never shuffle-step like a Lotus, but the Air steers with soul. The feedback flowing into your hands makes it possible to detect change in pavement types. The chassis, not exactly groundbreaking, features a multilink setup with coil springs, adaptive dampers, and anti-roll bars in front and back. With no air springs, active anti-roll bars, or rear-wheel steering, the Air feels natural and predictable unraveling corners. Driving it quickly is certainly easy, as is probing the high limits of the tailor-made Pirelli P Zero PZ4 Elect tires. The three-position dampers never introduce harshness, even in their most aggressive setting.
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