I typically don't participate in such events but earlier today I went to the Can Am test ride event at Glamis.....here's my 2 cents on the R.
For comparison, 3 years ago I downsized out of full size car into a SxS because I was tired of having the only big car in the group and ended up with my current rig which is a fully built Turbo charged Yamaha that has just about every mod there is. It's pretty quick and handles very well. The new R still has the more leaned back driving position which I don't care for, the instrument cluster in front of the driver is blocked by the steering wheel and is way too small to read while bouncing around. The screen in the middle has different modes, but is again impossible to read at any sort of speed. The tachometer is almost useless, and lacks any color change as you near redline, As a result, I was constantly hitting the rev limiter.
The car is fast, more mid range than my Yamaha, very close in power in the upper ranges. In manual mode, the gearbox works well although I would prefer a sequential gear shift lever instead of the paddle shifters, but that's just me. In Auto mode, the gearbox fully sucks. It felt like a CVT that doesn't work right.....if you want an automatic CVT style car I wouldn't recommend the R. Suspension wise it's pretty damn good right out of the box, we were hustling along the sand hwy coming back from Comp at about 55-60 mph and it ate up the whoops quite well. It turns well, and has great mid range grunt in the smaller tight dunes. Overall, a very decent car ....I'm sure they can be dialed in to be even better.
I have to say the one MAJOR turn off from a safety standpoint is the location of the fuel tank, it's literally in the dash. The passengers feet are below he tank, it's basically in your lap. In the event of a front end collision, the gas tank location is downright scary.
For comparison, 3 years ago I downsized out of full size car into a SxS because I was tired of having the only big car in the group and ended up with my current rig which is a fully built Turbo charged Yamaha that has just about every mod there is. It's pretty quick and handles very well. The new R still has the more leaned back driving position which I don't care for, the instrument cluster in front of the driver is blocked by the steering wheel and is way too small to read while bouncing around. The screen in the middle has different modes, but is again impossible to read at any sort of speed. The tachometer is almost useless, and lacks any color change as you near redline, As a result, I was constantly hitting the rev limiter.
The car is fast, more mid range than my Yamaha, very close in power in the upper ranges. In manual mode, the gearbox works well although I would prefer a sequential gear shift lever instead of the paddle shifters, but that's just me. In Auto mode, the gearbox fully sucks. It felt like a CVT that doesn't work right.....if you want an automatic CVT style car I wouldn't recommend the R. Suspension wise it's pretty damn good right out of the box, we were hustling along the sand hwy coming back from Comp at about 55-60 mph and it ate up the whoops quite well. It turns well, and has great mid range grunt in the smaller tight dunes. Overall, a very decent car ....I'm sure they can be dialed in to be even better.
I have to say the one MAJOR turn off from a safety standpoint is the location of the fuel tank, it's literally in the dash. The passengers feet are below he tank, it's basically in your lap. In the event of a front end collision, the gas tank location is downright scary.
