Comparison Tests
TESTED
Tom Baldwin is downsizing. He’s shucked the ’83 Porsche 911 Turbo, the ’55 Ford Thunderbird, the ’99 Lamborghini Diablo, and the ’91 Acura NSX—the latter, “my favorite car of all time,” he says, flashing a stunning bulwark of diamond-white teeth. He’s pared back to a black ’93 Dodge Viper and a selection of mud-splattered Chevy Suburbans.
Baldwin, a 54-year-old commodities broker, is standing in a spacious office where three computers are humming and a massive flat-screen TV is tuned to various Wall Street tickers. His office is on his home’s second floor, next to his wife’s office, which flanks their birch-trimmed bedroom, which hangs precariously over blue-black waves ramming a sea wall 40 feet below. Circling just beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows are ravens who’d do Edgar Allan Poe proud.
“I’ve been maintaining this place for nearly 25 years,” he says. “It’s like a living thing, but it’s often wounded. I’d like to take a rest.” It’s a sentiment anyone can understand. But there’s no need to feel sorry for Lucian Thomas Baldwin III.
That’s because he owns, lives, works, and plays at Granot Loma, a 50-room Adirondack-style mansion on the granitic shore of Lake Superior, 14 miles north of Marquette, Michigan. You’d never find it without detailed instructions. Now a National Historic Landmark, it was originally built by banking baron Louis Kaufman between 1919 and 1923. Kaufman, bless his fiscally inclined soul, invented branch banking.
Luckily for us, Granot Loma is for sale. If it weren’t, we probably wouldn’t have been invited to use it as a comparison-test destination—probably wouldn’t have been invited to stay in the piggery, even. Depending on what your bank manager says, G. L. can be yours for $20 million—well, $40 million if you want the outbuildings and the estate’s full 5000 acres [see here]. We say yours, because no C/D editor can afford either the $52,000 annual real-estate taxes or the $20,000 heating bill. Being rich requires a commitment.
On the other hand, pretending to be rich—well, let’s just say near rich—is simpler. You can accomplish it by buying one of the near-luxo sports sedans gathered here.
In truth, this comparo was centered around Buick’s handsome Regal Turbo, the newcomer on the block. We flanked it with the slightly less-expensive Volkswagen CC (whose turbocharged inline-four is but one cubic inch smaller than the Buick’s) and the more expensive Acura TSX fitted with the optional 280-hp V-6. Yes, we might’ve clutched fast to the base TSX’s 201-hp inline-four, but Buick is making a fuss about how its turboed four will tackle virtually all V-6 comers. So we decided to find out.
Note: This is almost certainly the first comparo in Car and Driver’s history to have been photographed entirely at one guy’s house.
