Hello all!
Just wanted to introduce myself as a new owner (well, as of next Tuesday) of a 2024 Fathom Blue Touring. Be forewarned, this will be a long post as my wife doesn't share my car enthusiasm and I have basically no one to talk cars with. So...
TLDR version: The car is an incredible piece of engineering, full stop. All things considered, this is easily one of the best driving vehicles I've ever driven. After driving it, I had to have it.
With that out of the way, I'm an enthusiast of all things automotive. I've owned quite a few cars in my short life (I'm an elder millennial/baby Gen-Xer/"cusper"), but all of them have been enthusiast cars in one way or another. It's a bug I've had since my youth, passed on from my dad, and my grandfather. My love of cars is agnostic - I enjoy everything from Japanese, German, American and everything in between (i.e. Swedish, Australian, and Italian).
More specifically, in my youth I was obsessed with American muscle, which led to my first car purchase at the age of 16 - a 1984 Buick Regal T-Type. I was every bit the donut-maker it was known for in the 80s and gave me years of reliable service. I had that car until college when I enlisted in the Army and bought my first brand new car after my first deployment - a 2006 VW GTI with the newfangled DSG transmission. That car was absolutely fantastic and kicked off a love of German cars that led to the purchase of an 08 BMW M3 and Mercedes Benz C63 AMG later down the road.
Eventually, though, that love of teutonic hardware waned. While their overall driving capabilities were excellent, those cars were finicky and almost too precious - I was obsessed with them to the point that I was always afraid to really drive them the way they were meant to for fear of breaking something and thus, being subject to thousands of dollars of repairs. After far too many out-of-warranty repairs that almost put me in the poor house (I was still an enlisted soldier - not exactly made of money), I sold those, looking to scratch my enthusiast itch in something more accessible.
By that time, BMW no longer made the cars I grew up loving (i.e. E46 3 series, E39 5-series, etc.), instead choosing to build aloof, isolated, disconnected things more fit for the affordable lease crowd, so I went back to my love of hot hatches and got a Ford Fiesta ST. That was literally one of the best cars I've ever driven, let me tell you. Only available with a slick manual transmission, the FiST had the involvement of a Miata, the practicality of a hatchback, the fuel efficiency of a sub-compact car, and the weight of a feather. The steering was sublime and the agility was that of a Plinko chip. Best of all, it was but a song to keep on the road and modify. Anyone that scoffs at the greatness of these cars simply doesn't understand fun behind the wheel of a car. I wish I kept it.
Since getting out of the Army and transitioning back to the real world, I went through a variety of other cars. Bitten with the off-roading bug from my Army days, I had a Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit with the Ecodiesel engine for 7 years. It served as the household daily driver, doing all things for all people (well, me and my wife, I should say). I know a lot of people don't give Jeep a lot of credit, but I have to say, as their then top tier model, the Grand Cherokee in fully loaded form was quite refined. I was lucky that my Ecodiesel wasn't plagued with all of the issues that other owners experienced, so reliability was quite good. With its air suspension, locking center differential, and rear limited slip diff, it was quite capable on the trails. Thanks to that ability, it allowed us to access many isolated sites in the mountains far away from the Subaru-driving casuals that frequently clogged up the more popular areas. Overall, it was everything I needed it to be - luxurious for the daily drive and capable on the trails on the weekends.
That said, the Ecodiesel itself was slow and had the worst turbo lag I've ever experienced in a car - and that says something given my first car. It was a total dog and very frustrating to drive in situations where you needed passing power and acceleration "right now!" such as when making a left hand turn across a two-way highway. I got used to brake torquing it in such situations since mashing the gas medal literally did nothing for a full couple of seconds thanks to new software programming mandated by the EPA after Jeep got caught fudging their diesel emissions. So, when I heard of this new brand, Rivian and its intention to bring a fully-electric off-road SUV to market, I was hugely excited.
I preordered my fully loaded Quad-motor Rivian R1S in 2021 and took delivery in Nov. 2023. In short, I consider it to be one of the most impressive vehicles ever built. It has the acceleration of a modern sport sedan, the handling of a german performance crossover BUT off-roads better than anything other than a Wrangler Rubicon and perhaps some highly modified 4Runners. All while burning zero gasoline, at that! Insane. To date, it's been flawless and nothing but an absolute joy to own and drive.
Since the Rivian was my first electric car, I had fallen in love with all the benefits of EVs. The legitimate one-pedal driving style is well-suited to both lazy stop-and-go driving and spirited blasts through the canyons (you can modulate "throttle" absolutely precisely, allowing you to make tiny corrections mid-corner without taking your foot off the accelerator and braking). After reading about the glowing reviews of the Lucid Air, I was certainly intrigued, but was nowhere near flush enough with cash to justify a Dream Edition. Hell, even the Pure at close to $100k was too spendy for me upon its original debut. But, as with many other new members here, my ears perked up when I heard about those sweet, sweet incentives Lucid dropped trying to move more sheetmetal.
So, I booked a test drive at my local Denver Lucid showroom to see what all the fuss was about. I drove a RWD Pure for two reasons: 1.) I heard the Pure was more nimble and well, "pure" - it offered a traditional old-school BMW 5-series driving experience, and 2.) I didn't want to have the wild acceleration of the pricier trims to cloud my judgement of the overall car. After the short test drive with the sales associate, I came away very impressed, particularly with the overall driving experience, which was by far the most important thing to me. That said, with all of the newness of the Air, a short test drive wasn't enough to sell me - I needed a longer drive to fully assess whether I could own one of these things. Almost reading my mind, Danny - my sales guy - volunteered to let me take a car overnight. Now, that's how you earn a sale! I jumped at the chance and soon, I took home a 2024 Touring.
I promptly took the Air through my local roads. I've memorized pretty much every manhole cover, pothole, frost heave, and road imperfection on my daily commute, so naturally, I wanted to see how the Air behaved on such imperfect pavement. Now, we all know these sections of road that we've come to subconsciously dodge as we drive toward them - they're the parts that send shudders through the chassis, bash through our sidewalls, and tense our bodies for the impending shockwave as we go over them. Instinctively, I braced myself as I approached each one of these usual craters in the Air and then - nothing. The Air absorbed each and everyone one of them like the bullet-proof windows of my old MRAP in Afghanistan. I was blown away. But that wasn't even the half of it. The Air not only absorbed these road terrors in one single suspension movement, but it was poised and ready for the next one immediately. This allowed me to fly through curves littered with decades of chip seal and tar snakes without nary a chassis disturbance. It was like magic - it had the compliance approaching a Mercedes S-class, but the roadholding and composure of a MagnaRide equipped Corvette. It was literally the best of both worlds.
The suspension tune is made even more impressive because it's just that - tuning. To my understanding, counter to the engineering genius of the drivetrain, the suspension is comparably low-tech. It consists of traditional springs and adaptive dampers, a pairing that is decades old. Sure, the suspension components themselves are very high-grade and yes, the dual lower front control arms allow for an ideal virtual steering axis, but the point is, all of this is done more through tuning, rather than through expensive complexity as with Audi, Porsche, and Mercedes' active suspensions. This is hugely impressive in an automotive market that has all but lost the art of suspension tuning.
Like all great cars, I found myself simply enjoying the drive. I blasted away from stoplights with acceleration that would have left my old Hellcat car-lengths behind me as it struggled for traction. I flowed through chicanes of freshly laid road to new housing developments on the outskirts of town. I cruised at a limited 87mph on my local toll road marveling at the serenity and quietness. By the time I parked the car in my driveway, I was simply astonished at what Lucid had accomplished with the Air. If you're a car guy and familiar with the underlying engineering and decisions that an automaker must to build a car, the Air will simply dazzle you. From the driving experience alone, I had to have one.
But, that's not the most shocking part. When I got out of the car, elated at the driving experience, I wondered what tires were equipped on the model I was driving. Knowing that the 20" wheels were equipped from the factory with Michelin Pilot Sport EV tires, I assumed that's what was on the car given the masterful driving dynamics I just experienced. Imagine my utter shock then when I peered at the tires and found not summer performance tires, but winter tires! The unmistakable tread of a snow tire was immdiately evident - Pirelli Sottozero winter tires were at all four corners, hand to heart. I tell you, I literally slapped my forehead in disbelief - and no, I don't mean "literally" in the incorrect figurative sense that Gen-Zers have bastardized - I quite literally, with mouth fully agape, took my right hand and smacked my befuddled brow with a sound that echoed through my quiet neighborhood at 10 o' clock at night. My shock and amazement was off the charts and rivaled the day I watched a prime Mike Tyson get knocked out by nobody Buster Douglas at the pinnacle of his career.
Still high from the drive, I played around with the touchscreen, and dived into the various menus and submenus. It was all intuitive enough, but as a car guy, I simply don't put much emphasis on these things. As long as I can access music, podcasts, and navigation in one way or another, I call it good. I found the 14 way seats incredibly comfortable, easily some of the best thrones I've ever sat in from a comfort perspective. Sure, they lack the substantial side bolstering of more sporting cars, but given the Touring model's place in the product portfolio, I consider the shape of the seats quite ideal. Of course, the rear seats are simply astonishing in the amount of room. Since the touring has extra foot room, I spread out my legs playfully, marveling at the amount of room not just directly in front of my legs, but across the floor, since the it's almost completely flat. You could legit travel with 4 full grown adults in absolute comfort in one of these. And 5, wouldn't even be a pinch - just less comfort. With the Rivian, I've gotten used to using the frunk like most people use their trunk. As such, the cavernous space of the Air frunk is mind-blowing. Given the total storage space within the Air (and the availability of roof bars), I can't imagine anyone could want for any storage space in one of these. The packaging is simply the best in any vehicle ever made as far as I'm concerned.
So, upon turning in the Touring, I pulled the trigger on an 18 month lease for a 2024 Fathom Blue Touring with Mojave leather. I take delivery on Tuesday and I can barely wait. I've already purchased some Tuxmats (which I have in the Rivian and are simply the best floor liners on the market, no contest) and am prepared for a full new car detail and ceramic coating. I'm an amateur detailer and have all the pads, polish, and gear to make that happen ASAP. I'll probably put some XPEL PPF on the bumper to round it out.
If you've made it to the end, congrats! I look forward to being a part of the Lucid club.
