Destination: Desolation

We were less concerned with where we were going, than with where we weren't going. Desolation was the real destination.

From Los Angeles, the most accessible slice of nowhere is a few hundred miles northeast, in Death Valley. That destination made for a journey resplendent with great driving, starkly beautiful scenery, and regrettably, the most uninspired dining imaginable. Still, we were happy with the route and the four European super sedans that would carry us along it.

Our vehicles were reason enough to pack up and leave Los Angeles. Each a factory-tweaked-and-tuned high-performance version of a regular production model, these four represent the current pinnacle of the sedan (or sedan-like) art. Though we rotated freely among the cars, each member of our quartet had a preselected favorite, a vehicle that he would write about in the capsules you'll find in this story. Editor C. Van Tune latched on to the BMW 540i six-speed during the planning phases of the trip. Editor-at-Large John Pearley Huffman opted for the Jaguar XJR. Senior Editor-at-Large Jeff Karr affixed himself to the Mercedes-Benz C36, while Senior Road Test Editor Mac DeMere went for the Volvo 850 T-5R wagon.

The T-5R is clearly the wild card in this group. For starters, it costs about $37,000-far less than the $50,000-$65,000 the others go for. Secondly, it's available in sedan or wagon form. Aside from having self-leveling suspension and carrying almost 100 extra pounds of metal and glass, the wagon is mechanically identical with the sedan. Close enough for us: We couldn't resist choosing the wagon for this comparison. Why go with a mere sedan when you can have the fastest wagon ever offered for sale in America? Besides, with near-identical performance, the test numbers we'd generate would apply to both versions.

So it came to pass that the four of us set out on a drizzly spring morning, heading no place in particular. Our first checkpoint was the semilegendary Roy Rogers Museum in Victorville, California. There in the shadow of a 40-foot-tall statue of Trigger, the Wonder Horse, we met photographer Scott Killeen, who henceforth would shuttle among the passenger seats, looking for the least hazardous combination of horsepower and driver blood-sugar level.

But long before feats of driving prowess could be explored, we had a couple of hours of highway driving ahead of us to clear Los Angeles' humanity overspray. That meant easy cruising on Interstate 15, the main artery that carries California's disposable income to the sucking vortex that is Las Vegas.

Locked on cruise control, we settled in for the duration. Walkie-talkies crackled with the first comments on ride comfort. The BMW and Mercedes-Benz were getting the highest marks for ride compliance, with the edge going to the Bimmer and its cushy high-profile tires. The C36 is a little firmer overall, but never approaches harshness.