Indholdsfortegnelse for Jul-15 i Car and Driver

“Car and Driver: That’s what we call it, because that’s what it’s about.” —David E. Davis Jr. IN ONE SENSE, the automobile has been a remarkably stable concept since the Patent-Motorwagen huffed out from Karl Benz’s workshop back in 1886. It is still the largely explosion-powered horse-replacer that gave modern society its unprecedented level of mobility. In another sense, though, the automobile’s progress has been staggering and unrelenting. We’ve gone from open wheels to integrated fenders to active aerodynamics; from hand-cranking to ignition keys to remote start; from powered nothing to adaptive suspensions to today’s electronics suites, perched on the precipice of autonomy. our society has been reflected in and propelled by that progress. In 1946, management thinker Peter Drucker called carmaking “the industry of industries,” and there is hardly…

Over the past six decades, we’ve gathered an astronomical amount of vehicle data. Want to know how many cases of beer you can stuff into a ’91 Chevy Blazer or how quickly a Lincoln Town Car accelerates in reverse? We know. But the future of performance is hazier. It took 20 years to drop zero-to-60-mph acceleration from 3.2 seconds (McLaren F1) to 2.2 (Porsche 918 Spyder). Don’t count on a 1.2-second sprint in 2035. Lopping just a tenth of the 918’s time is analogous to dropping a full second in the ’60s. The graphs on this page plot nearly every test number we’ve collected and incorporate a trend line. Draw the future at your own risk. BONUS DATA Braking and handling are highly dependent on tires. That the braking trend…

Though cruising the Pacific Coast Highway with the top down may be the most iconic way to celebrate the summer driving season, heading off-road is a fun, alternative way to experience some of the country’s most scenic landscapes on four-wheels. From the red rock beauty of Moab, Utah’s high desert and the challenging steeps of Southern Colorado to Upstate New York’s rugged trails and Eastern Oregon’s Painted Hills, we’ve surveyed the land and selected America’s best off-road trips for finally seeing just what that truck of yours is capable of. READ THE COMPLETE STORY AT CARANDDRIVER.COM/THECODE UPCOMING STORIES ON CARANDDRIVER.COM 10 Summer Car Camping Essentials 5 Things No Man Should Pay a Mechanic to Do What It Feels Like to... What Makes an Off-Road Truck Actually Good Off Road What…

A 196 7 CORVETTE STING RAY IS OUR TIME MACHINE FOR VISITING THE ERA WHEN AMERICA AND CAR AND DRIVER CAME OF AGE. THE 1960S MARKED THE ARRIVAL OF THE BEACH BOYS, THE BEATLES, AND THE STONES— not to mention modern birth control, space travel, and draft-card burning—so it’s no wonder this nation’s psyche was irrevocably twisted. C/D contributed to the chaos by penetrating the DMZ separating import worshippers from domestic-car enthusiasts. After a Pontiac Tempest GTO “beat” a Ferrari 250GTO in our March 1964 “comparison test,” the bar fights advanced to DEFCON 3. Fifty years ago, GM was king. Accountants fudged prices to ensure that market share didn’t top 50 percent, thereby avoiding trustbusters, while GM’s designers and engineers created everything from $2000 Chevy Corvairs to $11,000 Cadillac Fleetwoods.…

Car and Driver rolled into the ’90s the way General Norman Schwarzkopf’s troops rolled into Kuwait. We had the largest circulation of any car magazine; profits were lush; the internet disruption was still a decade away; and, most important, the car world churned out more—and more interesting— cars than ever before. Nissan and Toyota went after Cadillac, Lincoln, and the Germans by starting their own luxury divisions. The Lexus LS400 cost a third less than competing BMWs and Mercedes-Benzes, and it was vastly more sophisticated than domestic barges. It was rumored that Lexus required fewer hours to screw together an LS400 than Mercedes needed to repair problems on each S-class after assembly. The Germans responded by changing their production methods and introducing a slew of models, including SUVs built in…

AS THE 1990S SEGUED INTO THE NEW MILLENNIUM, THE WORLD WAS BUSY NOT ENDING AND THE WORLD’ S COMPUTERS WERE BUSY NOT CRASHING—at least not more than usual. And California was getting blasted by the next big car-culture tsunami: import tuning. People with the money to tweak new cars were cranking up the boost on the factory-turbocharged engines in Mazda RX-7s and Toyota MR2s and Supras. Those without the money were hacking their Honda Civics and CR-Xs into respectable facsimiles of sports cars a couple hundred bucks at a time. Competition in L.A.’s burgeoning street-racing scene was fierce. In Southern California and a few other pockets throughout the U.S., the trend was already peaking by 2001. But when the first installment of The Fast and the Furious flicks hit the…

Very few nameplates have been around as long as this magazine. The Camaro wasn’t there at the very beginning, but, having made its debut in 1967, it’s still one of the oldest model names on sale today. And when it celebrates its own milestone of 50 years in 2017, the Camaro will have a useful emblem with which to mark the occasion: this all-new sixth-generation car. It is common in our business to be presented with a new model that looks vastly different from its predecessor but is mechanically similar. The 2016 Camaro takes the opposite approach: It bears a close resemblance to the fifth-generation car but is, in fact, based on a different platform. Chevrolet’s thinking might be unusual, but it’s also sound. The outgoing Camaro’s look reached all…

The land speed record has long been a curiously British obsession. Since it was first set back in 1898, when Frenchman Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat drove his electric Jeantaud to a dizzying 39 mph, Brits have held the title to the fastest land vehicle on earth for a combined 75 years (the U.S. comes second with 28 years). It was a British car that took the record supersonic, when ThrustSSC hit 763 mph in 1997 and broke the sound barrier. And now an even more powerful challenger is being readied in a nondescript industrial warehouse near Bristol. Bloodhound SSC—SSC for “supersonic car”—will use both jet and rocket power in its record-setting attempts. Following a 200-mph test run in the summer, the team will target 800 mph later this year and 1000…

I first started writing for Sports Cars Illustrated in 1955, its frst year. I was already writing for Auto Age while studying industrial design at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Early in 1956, SCI moved to 366 Madison Avenue to join the publishing stable of Zif-Davis. The new editor, John Christy, was a surprising choice. A denizen of California’s hot-rodding world, Christy had edited some minor titles, but he brought with him a gold-plated asset: Grif Borgeson. Knowledgeable and thoughtful, Borgeson underpinned much of SCI’s coverage. As for the freelance contributors, Christy retained only one—me. He also brought another asset, Lockheed technical artist Clarence LaTourette, who drew our exclusive center-spread cutaways in his spare time. Christy encouraged in-depth coverage of interesting cars, starting with the Jaguar D-type. In the summer of…

My life was a dead end. I was washed up at the age of 24. I’d dropped out of the University of Michigan with nothing to show for my ill-spent time, other than a few hangers-on from whom I needed to hide. My only creative outlet was a mimeographed monthly newsletter I produced for the local union at the Chrysler proving grounds, where I worked at the impact lab crashing cars into walls. And then I got laid of in 1980. A month later, I was standing in front of David E. Davis Jr., unwinding some yarn while he laughed. He hired me to piss of the boys there, who’d been boring him to tears. The testosterone poisoning had reached critical mass. He’d had a little spate of frings and…

KURT COBAIN’S CREDIT CARD, THE PARADOXICAL PLASTIC CONDUIT FOR THE AUTOGRAPH OF A GRUNGE ICON WHO DESPISED MATERIALISM, PULLED IN MORE THAN $27,000 DURING A RECENT AUCTION. In southwest Washington state, Cobain’s mother wants $400,000 for the family home, which is surrounded by $100,000 bungalows in a neighborhood that locals once called Felony Flats. Nostalgia for Nirvana runs high these days, buoyed by aging Gen Xers. Because if you believe that culture and fashion echo in 20-year intervals, the 1990s are back at high volume. Are today’s hipsters wearing the very flannel that neo-moshers discarded at the Salvation Army when they graduated to graphic-design jobs? Call it a working theory. The folks at Mazda must remember the 1990s fondly. Twenty-six years after energizing the brand with a new, lightweight roadster,…

Car and Driver has been a magazine for 60 years—and a website for 18. It still delivers the best damn automotive journalism on earth, too. We think. C/D: So, how’s it going? C/D: My mind is clear and focused, my heart is full and healthy, and, best of all, my circulation is excellent. And when I go to New York, I can eat in the Hearst cafeteria. They’ve got pudding. C/D: You came of age in New York City. Was that an advantage? C/D: Yeah. Back then, I pulled in a lot of talent from the city’s literary world. Jean Shepherd, Bruce McCall, and Warren Weith. They were all New Yorkers with writing chops. They all saw the automotive world as something too big for a magazine called Sports Cars…

Speed limits, emissions regulations, and the always-newsworthy rift between rich and poor make today’s roads an inhospitable climate for supercars. But the pace of technological development means the segment is evolving faster than ever, especially with the advent of anything-goes mega-mutations made exclusively for the track. These monsters free engineers from real-world constraints, allowing them to try new technologies unhampered by regulations. Ferrari invented the segment a decade ago with the Enzo-based FXX, but today Maranello is just one of three factories offering ultra-expensive, track-only ordnance. And, as if being personally approved for the purchase isn’t exclusive enough, buyers don’t take these cars “as is.” The fortunate—literally, blessed by great fortune—new owners get the benefit of personalized detailing and factory perks. All three cars include Nomex wearables and a helmet…

THE SLOW, CLOCKWISE CHURN OF THE NORTH PACIFIC GYRE IS WHAT GIVES LOS ANGELES ITS FAMOUSLY FINE CLIMATE, producing as it does the two dominant weather patterns that the bored meteorologists here just call onshore and offshore. The onshore winds wafting in from the chilly waters of the Santa Monica Bay bring the morning fogs, the afternoon breezes, and the moderate temperatures that make this otherwise arid basin an alluring paradise. The less frequent offshore winds, called the Santa Anas, are boiling swelters caused by vast high-pressure zones over Nevada that blow the searing heat out of the interior, rushing it through the mountain passes in a dusty, fire-fanning roar. Onshore and offshore, exhale and inhale; the Pacific Ocean breathes and L.A.’s towering fan palms sway accordingly, heedless of the…

Car and Driver was born in 1955 as Sports Cars Illustrated, which sounded a bit too much like Sports Illustrated, so it changed to Car and Driver, which sounded a bit too much like Road & Track. By the early 1960s, identity confusion begat falling circulation, so they called in a brilliant advertising copywriter named David E. Davis Jr. to change everything. He cleaned house, firing everybody but the art director (the much-awarded Gene Butera) and started hiring complete unknowns to effect his transformation. John Jerome, a long, tall drink of water from Texas, was brought in. He recommended me, but Davis resisted, as I had once told the CEO of GM what he could do with his Corvette. Denise McCluggage, the motorsports columnist of the New York Herald Tribune,…

Mixed-out hair was standard-operating procedure. When office resources fell short, we found dates elsewhere in the building. In traffic, we showed Manhattan cabbies no mercy and yielded only to cute girls. Every trip from the desk to the driver’s seat took 45 minutes. We were the car boys of One Park Avenue. Revisionists call the 1970s the Malaise Era for car enthusiasm. Forgive them; their hindsight is 20-blind. Car and Driver thrived in the day when a quick zero-to-60 was anything less than 10 seconds, and did so by spiking the lemons that car companies served us to make our lemonade. When rising insurance rates throttled muscle cars and government regs killed them of, that void was quickly filled. Japan rose to the cause with the Datsun 240Z, Mazda RX-2/3/4,…

WHEN WE ARRIVED AT THE FORMER DEN OF DEBAUCHERY, WE FOUND A YOUNG WOMAN STANDING OUT FRONT WEARING ONLY A BRIGHT-RED, HIGH-CUT ONE-PIECE BATHING SUIT out of which swelled a positively unnatural volume of cocoa-hued breast and butt flesh. She wasn’t there for the entertainment of a couple of stout, Northern white boys and a fast-talking Brit, all wilting from the heat and atmospheric moisture. In fact, as far as we could tell, the only reason she was at the Mutiny Hotel—once home to one of the Miami area’s most notorious members-only nightclubs, a hangout for drug lords and druggies and dancing queens of the late 1970s and early ’80s— was to pose in front of a small stand of tropical foliage near the hotel’s driveway. Judging by the hat…

C/D and I are pretty much the same age. The magazine, however, doesn’t have to go to the bathroom three times nightly. As far as I know. Here’s what I remember from just one decade, the aughts: I was still refurnishing my office after the managing editor set fire to the place. I was still apologizing for having hired a soon-to-be convicted murderer to photograph an Infiniti J30. I drove a Benz ML500 up the Alaska Highway alone, spending one night sleeping in the back seat, near where I’d photographed two wolves. I spent a day listening to car stereos with J. Geils; a weekend serving roast-beef sandwiches (no bun on top) to Paul Newman; and an afternoon driving Tim Allen’s Cadillac DeVille DTSi. (Tim wore black-leather sandals and told…

DRIVE THE ALL-NEW CORVETTE Z06 The new supercharged 6.2-liter V-8 C7 Z06 is here! With advanced technologies and a race-proven bloodline, the all-new 650hp Z06 is a world-class supercar. This is your opportunity to experience this amazing car on a racetrack! For more information visit www.exoticsracing.com or call 702-802-5672. SHOCKING LOW PRICE! One Ounce 2015 China Silver Pandas are official legal tender, struck in 99.9% pure silver, and guaranteed Brilliant Uncirculated (BU) condition. Now, you can secure yours for as little as $25.95 each. Call GovMint.com now at 1-888-870-9476 with offer code PBU188-02 for more information. UPPER CLASS JUST GOT LOWER PRICED Finally, luxury built for value—not for false status. The Stauer 27-jeweled automatic movement Magnificat II brings the impeccable quality and engineering once found only in the watch collections…