Indholdsfortegnelse for March 1985 i MotorTrend

At Large The Last De Lorean A company in Columbus, Ohio, has gold-plated the last manufactured De Lorean, less the wheels and bumpers, and is ready to offer it to the person who has everything…for a price. Serial No. 20105 is available from Consolidated Stores Corporation, 2020 Corvair Ave., Columbus, OH 43207; 614/224-1297. More Did Have the V-8 As of the end of August 1984, the most popular Chevy engine in the model year was the 5-liter 305-cu-in. V-8, closely followed by the 2-liter 121 cu-in. four. Next in popularity was the 2.8-liter V-6. The V-8 found its way into 453,135 vehicles, while the 2-liter four was fitted in 403,885 units. Dealer Beware New York State once again set a precedent affecting car users. First was the mandatory seatbelt law;…

Showroom Stock to Showroom, Eventually Okay, we’ve been seeing this car for years at Nelson Ledges, and Porsche keeps telling us that its intro is right around the corner. Then we hear it’s been delayed, postponed, not quite ready, etc. Finally we got some pictures. Sure enough, it’s that elusive unicorn of the auto world, the Porsche 944 Turbo. The car reportedly delivers 220 hp and features revised front and rear ends, a new dash, and 928-style wheels. European Car of the Year Named Motor Trend staff isn’t the only group dealing out Car of the Year awards. Every year a European panel of 51 judges (all motoring journalists or editors) from 16 countries gets together and casts its votes for the European Car of the Year competition. There were…

Contrary to what you may believe, some of the best automobile designers in the world live no more than 50 miles from downtown Detroit. We’re talking about guys who could put Giugiaro, Bertone, and Pininfarina on the trailer in a one-on-one design-off. Most of this talent has remained invisible due to the nature of the American Auto Industry. When you’re part of a socio-economic structure that thinks building only 4.5 million vehicles is a duff year, your perceptions shift a bit. So when it comes time to redesign the all-new Blaine Aardvark Brougham, it’s not much of a surprise to discover that everybody from the general manager to the marketing boss’ wife ends up having input. In Motown, it seems as though the concept of leaving the design of a…

The BMW 535i is a Clark Kent kind of car. It hides its ability to leap over tall buildings behind a mild-mannered sedan exterior that is unlikely to turn the heads of passersby or, more important, the minions of the law. Yet it is a car that goes (and stops) superlatively well. Perhaps, like the comic book hero, it is enough simply to know the power is there. The Lois Lanes of the world will just have to keep guessing. Masking this sports-car-with-four-doors is attractive but hardly breathtaking bodywork in the long tradition of the Bavarian Motor Works. The silhouette provides little clue about the strong heart beating inside that conservative body. Though rightly billed as a luxury car, the 535i isn’t large in the American luxo idiom. Its wheelbase…

Last autumn, when General Motors, Chrysler, and Volkswagen were showing the public their all-new-for-1985 hardware, Ford presented a couple of refined powerplants and some minor styling revisions on a couple of models. Other than the imported Merkur, most of Ford’s 1985 offerings look just like last year’s models. But now, about a third of the way through the new model year, FoMoCo is unleashing a trio of new products just in time for the spring thaw. Of the 1985½ offerings—which include a more powerful SVO Mustang and re-engined, restyled Escort/Lynx models—the company’s new van, the Aerostar, is the most interesting. Offered in both cargo van and peoplehauling bus versions, the Aerostar will land smack in the middle of the small van segment, going head-to-head with the Chrysler T-vans, Toyota Van,…

To imagine the venerable founder of Carrozzeria Pininfarina as “young” is almost as difficult as attempting to think of one’s favorite deity in the same way. But, unlike the less productive gods who ebb and flow with the tides of fashion, Pininfarina, whose tasteful designs only seem to grow in stature and grace with the passage of time, was indeed once young. “Born with the car,” just 100 years ago, 10th of 11 children, and christened Giovanbattista, he was called “Pinin,” Piedmontese dialect for the runt of the litter. His courageous mother, of whom he always spoke with the greatest respect and affection, insisted that he attend school and also that he help support the family with whatever work he could find after the school day had ended. Thus he…

Labonte Scores One for NASCAR’s New Generation During his first seven years on the Winston Cup circuit, Terry Labonte became known as “The Iceman” for his cool competence under pressure. But in another ultracompetrtive Grand National season, during which for the sixth consecutive time the title remained on the line until the last race of the year, Labonte earned a new nickname—Champ. Showing a maturity that belied his relative youth, the 28-year-old Labonte became the second-youngest driver in the history of Winston Cup racing to win the GN title. He stands behind only Richard Petty, who claimed the first of his seven championships at age 27. Labonte’s illustrious 1984 performance provided vindication for his long years of dues-paying in the junior leagues. Terry’s exploits behind the wheel began in his…

In 1982, Congress ordered the Department of Transportation to commission a comprehensive study of the 55-mph national speed limit to try and cool, once and for all, the chronic controversy that swirls around this issue. The Transportation Research Board of the National Research Council, an arm of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, got the job, and it appointed a heavyweight, 19-member panel of government and industry experts appropriately named the Committee for the Study of the Benefits and Costs of the 55-mph Speed Limit. Its definitive 262-page study, “55: A Decade of Experience,” has been released, and, if you are a drive-for-fun fan, it’s not good reading. “Because of the substantial benefits to safety,” the study concludes, “the preponderant view of the committee is that the 55-mph speed limit…

In Detroit, a prototype vehicle built as a rolling test bed for development is quaintly referred to as an engineering mule—due primarily to its beast of burden lot in life, its ability to withstand prolonged sessions of inhumane abuse, and its irritating penchant for displaying unpredictable fits of bone-headed nastiness at precisely the wrong moment. It is no doubt this last characteristic that keeps most mules off public roads, out of the public eye, and behind the chain-link fences of remote desert proving grounds. Occasionally, however, one of these mean-spirited prototypes will reach an acceptable stage of refinement for a quick parade around the paddock under the scrutiny of suspicious automotive writers. At worst, the prototype mule will offer only a skewed and distorted image of the final assembly-line product’s…

People have done this sort of thing before. Various John Z. De Loreans and Malcolm Bricklins have pursued the idea of a personal/prestige automobile bearing their own name—something fast, sleek, and expensive, with a character too specialized (or simply too strange) for a major manufacturer to handle. The success rate in this game, at least in recent decades, has been pretty dismal. Sometimes a couple of cars will get built, or there may even be something resembling a modest production run. But without the financial, engineering, and production resources of a large corporation, the independent entrepreneur doesn’t have much staying power in today’s automobile business. Then again, when did history and reality ever stop someone from pursuing a dream? “I think somebody with common sense and acumen can make a…

Let’s run this by you one more time. First of all, each car in this field is judged against all the other cars in its CLASS. For instance, the Spectrum is judged against the GLC, Escort, Civic etc.; the MR2 against the Fiero, X1/9, etc. The first guy who sends a letter asking us how we can possibly compare a Sprint to a Merkur gets to spend a week in Miami with Richard Simmons. The testing goes like this. The first day is spent in performance testing. This includes acceleration runs from 030 mph, 0-60 mph, quarter-mile ETs, and terminal velocity. Other performance tests include braking from 60 mph to 0, runs through the 600-ft slalom, laps around the 200-ft-diameter skidpad, and finally a fuel economy test over our 150-mile…

He’s already a living legend. And at age 44, he shows no signs of letting up. After 15 years out of the Indy Car limelight, Mario Andretti, America’s primo motorsport personality, once again has returned to the head of the class. His spectacular 1984 performance, which earned him a fourth Indy Car title, served eloquent notice that Mario still has enough of the right stuff left to reign supreme among the old guard as well as the new wave. Driving a Lola T-800 and the T-801 superspeedway variant for the Budweiser Newman-Haas Racing team, Andretti dominated all of CART’s statistical categories. Among his no table achievements during the 16-race season were 10 new track records and eight poles. A half dozen different drivers tasted victory in 1984. But with six…

Changing Tire Technology: They’re More Than “Round and Black” It’s easy to lose sight of new developments in tire technology, since many are a result of compounding or tread pattern changes, and to any casual inspection, tires always remain “round and black.” Obviously this isn’t true, as the tire industry is one of the most competitive of all automotive-related businesses. Nevertheless, major advances are fairly easy to pinpoint in history. The first no-ticeable change was when wood-spoked wheels had their steel bands replaced with solid rubber tires—probably not much softer than the steel bands but certainly quieter. Next came inner tubes filled with air. This softened the ride characteristics and, even more important, imparted a very special characteristic to the tire—slip angle, which is responsible for the handling traits of…

The SCCA’s Champion Spark Plug Road Racing Classic was all that and more for 1984. A record crowd reported at over 75,000 passed through the Road Atlanta turnstiles during the course of the week-long event to watch over 550 of the country’s best club racers compete for 22 national titles. As usual, the action was fast and furious throughout. But Mother Nature and some freaky racing luck combined to make one race, the GT-1 event, overshadow all others by comparison. The ill-fated contest produced the single largest “incident” in the history of SCCA racing. The 18-lap sprint began under threatening skies with 25 cars taking the green flag. Midway through the race, rain began falling on some of the outlying sections of the track. The full effect of the deluge…

Sunbird Shows a New Beak Disguised as a Douglas fir, Jim Dunne snapped this ultra-unofficial photo of an ’86 Pontiac Sunbird Turbo undergoing conifer avoidance tests at the giant General Motors Milford proving ground. As this picture shows, next year’s sportiest version of Pontiac’s J-body will get a new front treatment with retractable headlights and twin air-intake nostrils replacing the current model’s Batmobile-style grilles. The restyled nose will be featured on Sunbird SE 2 and 4-door sedans, 2-door hatchback coupe, and a new SE convertible. In addition to the revised front, ’86 Sunbird SEs will wear bodycolor aerolook rocker extensions, a Trans Am-style “blister” taillamp, and a revised instrument panel. Regular Sunbird and LE models fitted with the optional turbo engine will be visually unchanged from their 1985 guises. Short…

With total production of the Volkswagen Type I now over 20 million and counting (far surpassing the second-place Ford Model T), it’s not surprising to find some configuration of the “Beetle” in virtually every corner of the planet. In the evolutionary crucible of the last 40 years, however, some of the otherwise land-locked Bugs have taken wing. It must have been in their genes. Dr. Porsche, who designed the Type I before moving on to leave his indelible mark on sports cars, also fathered a 100-hp aircraft engine for Austro-Daimler in 1908 and a 44-liter 1000-hp aircraft engine in 1936. Even the sibling 356 engine has gone airborne with some success, and now the new 3.2-liter 6-cylinder Carrera motor is type-certified for aircraft (the Fuji blimp uses two of the…

For a Few Dollars More Although still sketchy about final, out-the-door asking prices, Ford marketing personnel say the retail list on the Mercury Sable will probably work out to approximately $600-$800 more than a comparably equipped Taurus. So what do you get for your few dollars more? For openers, there’s the additional 2 in. of rear overhang that not only cleans up the Sable’s rearend aerodynamics—offering a longer, smoother flow path and a resultant drop in Cd to 0.29—but is also responsible for the extra 1.5 cu ft of trunk capacity (18.4 compared to Taurus’ 16.9). The additional length of rear deck sheetmetal is virtually undetectable, although it seems to draw out the wraparound rear quarter, accentuating the smooth, aero contours. The Sable’s taillights are longer and wider than the…

The sophomore jinx can be a devastating phenomenon for any competitor, whether it be a young lefthander trying to live up to a Cy Young rookie season or a new car that wins Import Car of the Year. Matching out-of-the-gate sales performance is much harder than it might seem, that quest made all the more difficult by the public’s generally enthusiastic acceptance of the new (though not necessarily the different). So when a neat little car like the CRX becomes a familiar sight—its once unique shape no longer swiveling heads, its King of the Imports crown soon to be snatched away—what’s a car company to do? It’s got to make the car-buying folks understand that the CRX was no shot in the dark, that its first-year success was no fluke.…

In Europe, you can now buy a new car with a Porsche engine for around $5000. It isn’t made in Stuttgart, but the power unit that proudly carries the distinctive Porsche letter-style was designed and developed by the same team of engineers that produced the 928, the 944, and the world-beating sports-racers. If a Porsche engine in a family hatchback is a surprise, prepare yourself for a bigger shock: the car is Spanish. State car maker SEAT, until 1980 effectively a satellite of Fiat, is now forging its own way and looks to expand at a rate that Europe’s longer-established manufacturers find alarming. When SEAT broke with Fiat, it had only adaptions of Italian designs in its model range and no real technology of its own. The firm toyed with…

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