Indholdsfortegnelse for May 1982 i MotorTrend

The 1982 Toyota Supra. The car that went head-to-head with competitors like Datsun Turbo ZX. BMW, and Mercedes Benz, and ran away with Motor Trend’s Import Car of the Year award! And Motor Trend said that Supra is more than just the best car in this year’s competition: “Supra is one of those cars that only comes around every ten years or so”. The 1982 Toyota Supra. Automotive experts agree—it’s the right stuff. Which led us to wonder, “What would another automotive expert—racing legend Dan Gurney—think of Supra? Especially if we asked him to pursue the question through the streets of Long Beach, California?” So we asked him. But we didn’t have to ask twice. With the Long Beach Police Department clearing the streets, Dan took off, Supra’s double over-head…

CONTINENTAL “CONCEPT 90” The winter car show circuit, starting with the New York show in February, saw a lot of this concept car from Lincoln-Mercury, which is actually what the 1984 Lincoln Mark VII will look like (See March ’82 Detroit Report and compare the sketch to the concept car). The Concept 90 is 16 in. shorter overall than the current Mark VI at 200 in., 6 in. shorter in wheelbase at 108.3 in., and 2.2 in. lower. The Concept 90 has a drag coefficient of .32, features electronically controlled ride height for futher drag improvement and thermostatically controlled louvers in the grille for even more improvement. One or both of these features can be expected to surface on the ’84 Mark VII, and there’s lots more technoflash inside. FORD…

A little way south of Turin the rain stopped, the autostrada opened up to a full four lanes, and we were able to put the hammers down in earnest. One of the joys of driving in Europe is that highway speeds of 180 and 190 kph (111 - 118 mph), while well past the local limit, are nevertheless commonplace. True, at these speeds our little caravan of Volvos was leaving most traffic behind, but there was always the odd highballer or two sweeping past in a Porsche or Ferrari or Mercedes. Which made it easy for us to maintain our pace right up to our lunch stop in the Italian border town of Aosta, gateway to the Mont Blanc Tunnel and Geneva. The point here is that European drivers are…

With the obvious exception of body work, the 944 engine is the first major component in the history of the 924/944 series that was designed expressly for this application and not borrowed from something else. And even so, it’s not entirely new, being essentially half the 928 V-8. Since its introduction in 1976, the 924’s Audi sedan engine has never been what Porsche—or Porsche buyers—had in mind. Noisy, with mediocre power potential, its main attraction was that, like the last girl at the dance, it was available. Stung by widespread criticism and rejection of the 924’s tepid engine, Porsche figured the customers were ready for a new dance. The goal was a higher level of performance and more potential for development. But simply writing a big check for a brand-new…

The car is magnificent. Sitting on jackstands in a cramped shop, wheels and tires off, hood and radiator shell removed, interior partially disassembled, a body man working on the finish, even without considering its imposing dimensions the car is magnificent. No other description seems to fit: There has never been a car quite like this one. The wheelbase stretches 140 in. The tires are 35 in. in diameter, mounted on 20x 5.5-in. wheels. It’s 219 in. long, the track is 62 in., and it must weigh over 6000 lb. It’s enormous, both in sheer physical size and appearance, yet a man of no more than average stature can stretch his arm straight out over the roof. The fenders arch higher than the hood and the window sills. The base of…

How long is 24 hours? Depends entirely on your perspective. Obviously someone waiting for a Khomeini firing squad views time differently than the person awaiting arrival of an inheritance check. Motor racing for 24 hours seems to stretch time to absurd lengths, distorting it until nothing exists (or ever existed) outside the framework of the competition, and you find yourself thinking, “What the hell was it I used to do before I came here?” The entire operation of a racing team that comes to compete in the 24 Hours of Daytona is an encapsulated microcosm…there is no entry or escape. The Kent Racing team arrived at the track on Wednesday morning to do battle in the 1982 Daytona 24 Hours with two of the world’s finest Mazda RX-7s. These cars…

Toyota has done a splendid job of transforming the Celica into a series of success stories since its introduction in 1971. To date, the stylish subcompact has undergone no less than five major evolutions and sold well over 1 million units. This year it’s been through another sweeping overhaul, highlighted by some striking new sheet metal. What’s emerged is easily the finest Celica ever produced. If a car with this sort of credentials could be accused of having failings, the Celica would be guilty of promising more than it’s capable of delivering. Among performance devotees, the model line has always suffered from a reputation for using attractive packaging to cover up a multitude of suspension sins and powertrain peccadillos. The most commonly voiced complaints about the Celica’s handling relate to…

Only five years ago, there was no such animal as a Saab turbo. There were only “regular” Saabs, the EMS and GLE, low-volume Swedish cars for those with money to spend and a taste for the bizarre. But since 1978, Saab has been a card-carrying member of the turbo fraternity, and today the company is in a unique position among all manufacturers doing business in the U.S. More than half of all Saabs sold here are turbocharged. This percentage of total volume is higher than that of Buick, Audi, Datsun, Volvo, Fiat, Porsche, or any other merchandiser of turbocharged gasoline cars. That somewhat startling statistic makes an interesting backdrop for discussion of Saab’s latest wind-driven product, the Saab 900 Turbo APC (for Automatic Performance Control), which replaces all the conventional…

BALANCE-OF-TRADE SPECIAL EDITION CAMAROS The Chevrolet Camaro Z28-E will make some news this year for General Motors. The specially equipped hatchback coupe is the first car produced by The Corporation exclusively for overseas export. The “Z-E” will be marketed with a single powertrain: a 4-bbl carbureted 5.0-liter V-8 with a 3-speed automatic gearbox. The rear-axle ratio is a rather leisurely 2.73:1. The engine is set up to operate on leaded fuel for all markets except Japan. Z28-Es destined for Europe will be fitted with engine oil coolers, indicating that The General is expecting to sell more than a few Camaros to the continental hot-shoe set. All Z-Es will use disc brakes on the four corners. Curiously, while the export Camaro is equipped with the same aluminum wheels and P215/65R15 Eagle…

Think of the Fuego as Renault’s Scirocco: A sporty car—some (advertising copywriters, for example) might say sports car—built entirely of proprietary bits and pieces from a volume sedan. Put simply, the Fuego is a Renault 18i coupe, as the Scirocco is a Rabbit coupe. But just as Volkswagen’s sporty 2+2 is more than a lowly Rabbit, the Fuego is more than the sum of its middle-class parts. While the Fuego has been offered in Europe for nearly two years, with three different engines, the U.S. model will be available with only two: a 1674cc fuel-injected four and a 1565cc intercooled, turbocharged four. Since our experience with the Fuego was with the normally aspirated model, we’ll try to confine our comments to that version (for details on the turbo engine see…

The year was 1911, and the first edition of “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” was about to unfold. Speedway officials had decided to scrap the previous Memorial Day schedule of several 100- and 200-mile events in favor of a single 500-mile blockbuster—the Indianapolis 500-Mile International Sweepstakes Race. With $25,000 in prize money posted by the Speedway, the “Sweepstakes” seemed certain to attract the best race cars and drivers in the world. But the organizers were wary and therefore reserved the right to cancel the race if fewer than 30 entries were received. The Speedway management had substantial cause for its apprehension as the inaugural event, held in 1909 at the newly completed facility, had caused a furor over the death and destruction that stood in its wake. The original surface…

Toyota’s involvement with a corporate performance program began in 1960. A crack engineering group, the #7 Technical Division was organized to run the factory’s then-fledgling competition effort. During the next six years, it developed and campaigned a variety of road-racing and rally cars in conjunction with another in-house shop, the Toyopet Service Center. As the marque became more successful, Toyota Motor Sales, Japan, decided to make its factory-only race parts available to the general public. Toyopet organized a retail sales outlet known as the Toyota Sports Corner, and the TSC began marketing a modest selection of competition pieces under the TOSCO, and later the TRD, brand names. The roster was soon expanded to include a line of high-performance parts designed for street use. Today, TRD has blossomed into a multimillion…

Of the 27 major car companies doing business in the United States last year, 15 reported lower sales than the previous year, and only 12 were up. Of those companies that increased sales in 1981 over 1980, the only one over 30% better than the year before was Peugeot Motors of America. The reason for that industry-leading sales gain is simple: The American driving public has discovered the myriad virtues of the Peugeot 505, introduced in mid-’80 as the successor to the old, tired, but still virtuous 504. The 505 is Peugeot’s only true family of cars in the U.S. market. The 504 is sold only as a diesel wagon, and the luxurious 604 is sold also only as a single model, the 604 TD turbodiesel, in severely restricted numbers…

First a short treatise on turbocharging: 1982 marks the 20th anniversary of the production turbo. The 1962 Corvair was the first, the 1982 Fiat Spider Turbo just about the latest (the Spider Turbo was actually introduced about a year ago, but for the sake of symmetry…). The turbo Corvair used the simplest turbocharger layout possible—a TRW (later Rajay) turbo drawing through a restrictive Carter YF sidedraft carburetor. The airflow restriction kept boost pressure down. No fuel enrichment device was necessary, no wastegate to keep boost pressure from going too high, no extra intake restrictor, no water injection, no detonation control, no electronic overrides of any kind. Results were mixed. Specially prepared, the Corvair was a rocketship, eventually running over 100 in the quarter. But stock, without special (destructive) driving techniques,…

PER-MILE COSTS ACROSS THE COUNTRY As it does every year, the Hertz Corporation has released its latest survey results comparing the costs per mile of driving in 20 major cities. For the third time in a row, Los Angeles topped the list as the most expensive place to buy and run a car, and Detroit turned out to be the cheapest. Hertz bases its calculations on the purchase of a new 1981 domestic-built compact, traded in after four 10,000mile years. Because past surveys assumed trade-in after three years, the new results are not directly comparable to previous data, but the re-searchers estimate an average increase of 18% in per-mile expenses between 1980 and 1981. The survey examined costs for gasoline, oil, maintenance and repairs, insurance, licensing, and depreciation. Sticker prices…

So what’ll it do? To put the 944’s performance in perspective, we took along a 924 Turbo when we went to the test track. In addition to our usual instrumented acceleration and braking tests, we ran both cars through a 700-ft slalom and around a .8-mile handling loop. In general, we found measureable performance differences between the two cars to be notable by their absence. That didn’t keep us from reaching some conclusions about the cars, however. On paper, the blown 2-liter engine in the 924 has a high-rev power advantage, the 944’s 2.5 some extra low- and mid-range pull. Weight is virtually identical, the factory quoting 2778 for the 944, 2779 for the Turbo. The 944 has more tire, 215/60s on 7-in. rims versus 185/70s on 6s (Pirelli CN36s…

At first look, the Fuego Turbo’s A07-hp engine output doesn’t seem like much. Then you remember the power is coming from a 95.5cid four. The turbo engine is a cleaned-up version of the powerplant from the Renault 18 Turbo sedan. In European emissions tune, the 18 Turbo engine produces 110 hp at 5000 rpm (only 3 hp more produced at 500 fewer rpm than the catalytically converted U.S. emissions motor). With the Turbo, Renault has been able to successfully market a specially trimmed 18 model against 2-liter Alfa Romeo Alfettas, the fuel-injected Audi 80GLE, and BMW’s 6-cylinder 320i. Don’t expect quite that kind of performance when the turbo engine is installed in the heavier Fuego. Not that the blown model will be a slug; we’re expecting quarter-mile acceleration times in…

During its short but successful four-year history, Honda’s personal-size sport coupe has become quite a cult favorite among the not-ready-for-prime-budget players. With fully independent suspension, a 1751cc SOHC engine, an extensive list of standard features, and a relatively modest price tag, the Prelude wraps high-quality workmanship and respectable performance in an appealing mini-compact package. However, despite numerous positive attributes, its critics maintain that the Prelude remains a flawed effort: a car with somewhat cluttered styling and a potential for greatness that has yet to be realized. The validity of these contentions is best evidenced by the increasing numbers of modified luxo/performance Preludes that have turned up of late. Enter the Merlude. This intriguing one-off was conceived by former MT Editor John Dianna in conjunction with designer Cliff Ghetti. As a…

Early last year, in the Spring 1981 issue of sister publication Sports Car Graphic, we did a raft of stories on Mazda RX-7s: stock, modified, and convertible conversions. The section included a full road test of an ’81 RX-7 GS model, and we decided to follow it up with a 25,000-mile long-term evaluation of the car. Even at the rate we run up mileage here at MT, 25,000 miles takes some time, but the odo finally reflects the proper sum. And our experience over the course of this long-term test confirms what Mazda’s racing efforts suggest: These cars are as durable as they are fun to drive. The key to the whole enterprise, of course, is accurate record keeping, and in the case of the RX-7 GS a logbook became…

The guy in the car next to me at the light couldn’t believe it. He was sitting in one of Opel’s new J-car Asconas, fresh from the showroom and so new the tires weren’t even dirty, and he obviously couldn’t fathom anyone having a topless Ascona when the car had been announced just the day before. The truth is that GM-Opel’s design division felt the release of the Ascona in Germany would be more widely publicized if an unusual derivative of the car were built for show purposes. It decided on the convertible version when a German magazine asked Opel to provide a special car to be used as a prize in a competition. At about the same time, an American company offered Opel a convertible design originally conceived for…

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Bobby Allison knows all about the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Four times during his brilliant 17-year NASCAR career, the 4th-winningest driver in Grand National history has finished the season in hot pursuit of the Winston Cup title. Four times he’s been forced to settle for second best. The biggest disappointment came just last year. After leading both the point and purse standings from the season opener through 23 races of a 31 event schedule, everything fell apart for the 44-year-old veteran. A rift between Allison and team owner Harry Ranier, plus the determination of Darrell Waltrip finally caught up with Bobby at the Wrangler-SanforSet 400. Despite his five victories, including a masterful drive in the season-ending Winston Western 500, Allison was once again forced to assume…