Indholdsfortegnelse for November 1984 i MotorTrend

The outraged howl of a birdcage Maserati at full throttle; the holy shriek of massed V-12s; the Richter-scale rush of an Allard-Caddy; the fragile grace of a Type 35 Bugatti. There’s no question that historic car racing provides an experience you simply can’t get anywhere else. You can’t dredge it up intact from your memory, you can’t bring it back to life by watching films, and you certainly can’t get it by standing around in a museum somewhere. Nossir. If you like your sports car lore in living, breathing, snarling color, you better get yourself out to one of these events. Which is precisely what a steadily growing number of sports and race car lovers have been doing at historic meets that seem to be popping up all over the…

At Large Great White Market A story in USA Today exposed a technique some American consumers are using to save substantially on new-car purchases: buying their cars north of the border in Canada. Between the devalued Canadian dollar (about $0.77 U.S.) and tax rebates (the 9% federal excise tax and Ontario’s 7% sales tax are refunded to foreigners), American buyers have trimmed some 10% off the price they pay for a new car. The catch? Many Canadian-market cars do not meet U.S. emissions regulations. GM, King of Exports General Motors had the strongest foreign sales of any American company last year, according to Fortune magazine. Despite the strong dollar, which keeps prices of American goods high on foreign markets, GM sold a whopping $6.49 billion overseas in 1983, up 39%…

“Harrah’s Automobile Collection, One Man’s Tribute to the Great Automobiles of the World,” By Dean Batchelor, Photography by John Lamm; GP Publishing, Pontiac, Michigan 48057; 9 × 11¼ in., 256 pages, many photographs, most in 4-color. Available at bookstores or from: Motoring Enthusiasts, 665 E. El Camino Real, Sunnyvale, CA 94087, $23.95 postpaid. My confusion began on the title page: At first, I had the notion that this was a tribute by Dean Batchelor to the Great Automobiles of the World, and I was quite willing to stipulate to his qualifications for selecting them. In Chapter One (Part One) I soon discovered that this volume is part biography (of William Harrah, who managed to turn the frailties of his fellow men into a couple hundred million dollars); part history (of…

A pologies at Opel were both pro-fuse and unnecessary when I showed up in Russelsheim to pick up the car I was to drive for a week. The metalworkers strike was in full swing, the factory was closed, (an embarrased secretary, looking sadly at the drum-beating, pipe-playing demonstrators in front of the old brick plant, said, “This isn’t Germany anymore—it’s Turkey, or maybe Afghanistan”) and, in orderly, Teutonic way, everything was chaotic. I had to be surreptitiously driven to an Opel dealership a few kilometers away to pick up the car, a silver Monza 3.0 automatic. More apologies, handshakes, and I was off to the autobahn. The Monza looks something like a Chevy Cavalier Type 10 with a long hood. Unlike the fwd J-car Type 10, though, the Monza (and…

There are only a handful of people in the whole world who really know where hot rodding was born. I’m one of them. And now I’m going to share it; consider it one of the advantages of reading Motor Trend. Naturally, hot rodding was born in California, everybody knows that, but the real question is where in California. I mean, the exact spot. The answer is simple: Moon’s Cafe in Santa Fe Springs. In 1939. This revelation will, of course, start an argument. Almost everything about the automobile does. Lissen, it might even lead to a disclaimer on this column; you know, “The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of Petersen Publishing Company, its staff, relatives, advertising agency…” Something like the surgeon general’s warning on a pack…

Reader Royalty I have been reading your excellent magazine Motor Trend for a very long time now. I very much enjoy the witty comments of the editor to some of the letters and feel you have always been doing a great job in reporting about the latest developments in the American and international automobile industry as well as on the automobile more as a means of recreation rather than just a means of transport. I would also like to add I especially enjoy the Retrospect articles. May I wish you and all the people who help in contributing in the making of such a fine magazine an everlasting future! Divyaraj SinghPrince of Barwani India Experts for Hire Tony Swan is justifiably upset with the jury verdicts in the Donohue and…

In the first 35-mph crash test by NHTSA of a production-available air bag-equipped 1984 model car, a Mercedes-Benz 300SD failed to protect the driver-side dummy from serious or fatal chest injuries. Maybe. The existing “acceptable limit” for chest deceleration is 60 g. Mercedes’ optional ($880) driver-side air bag, in combination with the 3-point belt, scored 63 g. The passenger dummy, restrained by seatbelt alone, showed a very acceptable 44 g. A lot of air-bag opponents are crying “I told you so,” but there is of course more to the matter. A Mercedes spokesman questioned the validity and interpretation of NHTSA’s numbers, pointing out the existing tests and standards evolved in a seatbelt-only environment. The tighter restraining of a be t/bag combination stops the dummy quicker, he said, producing the higher…

A V-8 Sierra Here’s a little something to take the boredom out of those commutes to your diamond mines. Ford of South Africa just announced the production of 250 special-edition Sierras equipped with 5.0-liter 200-hp V-8 motors. The car reportedly has a maximum speed in excess of 140 mph and can do 0-60 mph in under 8 sec. This new model is designed to be the spearhead of South Africa’s return to racing. Dubbed the XR8, it will be offered only in white with dark blue bumpers and lower body cladding.—Alan Clark Honda Nixes V-6 Prelude After nearly a year of rumors about a high-powered V-6 Prelude, Honda quietly let it slip that the project has been put off indefinitely. The problem, it seems, is one of engine accessibility. From…

Call it a designer Subaru and you won’t be far wrong. With its horizontally opposed 4-cylinder engine stuck out the front and console-mounted lever to engage all-wheel drive, Alfa Romeo’s fourwheeling sedan is something of a comrade in antiestablishmentarianism with products from the offbeat Japanese maker. But the visuals are as crisp and modern (if not lovely, from every vantage) as you’d expect from Italian stylists. I borrowed our car from a cheerful Sig. Rampinelli at Alfa’s old Portello works in Milan. (He spoke just about as much English as I did Italian—we smiled and laughed at each other a lot.) All around the ancient city, Alfa Romeo’s historic hometown, banners advertised the debut of a new car, the very car I was driving: “Alfa 33—La linea del successo.” The…

Feeling frustrated by the whole 55 mph issue? Want to do something about it with your ballot this election month? A noble urge, but probably futile. The truth is, since the National Maximum Speed Limit is such a non-issue in Washington right now, you can do more good at your typewriter than in the voting booth. Many members of Congress would support a repeal measure if it came up, but don’t detect enough public sentiment to step forward. The two repeal bills that do exist are tied down in committee, and will likely be allowed to die there. Congresspersons hear that the fatality rate has dropped since the limit was instigated (see other sidebar) and that the public supports the law (polls show no one wants to oppose safety and…

It was Laurence H. Pomeroy, designer of Vauxhalls and one of the more intellectual of the many brilliant engineers in the motor industry at the beginning of the century, who dismissed the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost as representing “the triumph of development over design.” Even today, I doubt if Rolls-Royce could decently object; they have almost always been strong on development, sometimes (as in the epic story of the Merlin aero-engine) spending years in eliminating serious flaws from a generally promising design. It is a praiseworthy thing to do, but it should not be allowed to dominate the equations of creation: development is not a good substitute for design. One of today’s designer’s and one for whom I have tremendous respect—Denis W. Sevier, chief engineer of Bristol Cars—had a few words…

By late afternoon, Monterey’s cobalt blue sky had transitioned into a charcoal wash. Coarse-grained clouds were the advance men for a blinding salt fog you could see slithering down canyons and crawling a spectral two feet off valley grass, bleached this time of the year, high summer, the color of crazed leather. From the top of the Corkscrew at Laguna Seca you can watch the weather roll in like an unscheduled train. As with any peninsula, Monterey is in a constant state of thermal warfare. The ocean, land, and air are the immutable forces, each trying to leverage the other two into submission or at least some kind of stasis. The boundary layers, the interfaces, if you will, of those three elements are the common frontiers each tries to claim…

If you genuinely like to drive, you probably do it both well and a little too rapidly to please the arbiters of vehicular propriety. Indiscretions of this sort will get you a feature role in a familiar American scene, which is part of a great tragi-comic farce we are expected to take seriously—or else. As the scene opens, law enforcement’s answer to Darth Vader has transfixed a “violator,” you, with his magical red beam and shortly will begin to talk and write. You can talk, too, but neither calm reason nor groveling nor mighty oaths of denial will stay a single flashing stroke of his pen. Officer Vader has heard it all before, and he has you red-footed. You were driving your automobile at a speed perceptibly above the national…

The fast, flashy, and ever volatile Formula One series hit its midseason stride as the world’s premiere road racers crossed the Atlantic for a three-race swing through Canada and the U.S. Besides the existing sites at Montreal and Detroit, FISA gave Dallas its first Grand Prix event, as a replacement for the date vacated by Long Beach on the 1984 schedule. The month-long Canadian-American summer junket proved the most challenging four weeks of the year for many of the F1 teams. Working primarily out of a toolbox and a rent-a-truck while attempting to prepare such high-tech wonders for battle, these diverse venues can make life miserable for team managers and mechanics alike. The sweeping 2.74-mile Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal is a permanent facility where lap speeds average in excess…

All dynamic changes in vehicular motion are accomplished through the tire contact patch. During cornering, the tires collectively develop the lateral forces necessary to change the direction of motion by means of rolling and/or sliding friction between the tire and the road surface. During acceleration, the driven wheels develop the longitudinal thrust required to increase vehicle speed, while separate wheels are used for steering (with the exception of fwd or 4wd). Braking uses all four tires to generate the stopping forces, so at least two tires are required both to decelerate and steer the vehicle. The amount of force each tire can develop at any given instant is dependent on the vertical force (weight) on it, the friction between it and the surface, and whether it is sliding or rolling.…