Indholdsfortegnelse for Aug-14 i Car and Driver

Sic your dogs on us at: editors@caranddriver.com or join the discussion at: backfires.caranddriver.com THE $75,000 QUESTION First let me say I really like Camaros; I had a 1988 IROC, a '97 SS, and an '02 SS. So what is not to like about a new 505-hp Z/28 ["This is America's Track Star," May 2014]? On paper it's glorious, and every V-8/manual speed enthusiast should own one. But as always, it's too good to be true. First, the price: At $75,000, it is nothing more than a track toy for people who want to run a 4000-pound brick with a V-8 exhaust note with their Porsche and Ferrari. They also won't bitch about the $15,000 repair bill for a new engine when the LS7 drops a valve, tires that…

If you don't KNOW YOUR MEAT, at least know your butcher. In Picayune, Mississippi, Dino Behler butchers Corvettes. Dino's Corvette Salvage & Sales slices up Chevy-sports-car carcasses and then packages the pieces into marketable morsels. "Every part of a Corvette is worth something," says Behler. "We buy the vehicles wrecked, so we pay on average 30 to 35 percent of the potential parts value," Behler explains. "So our cost is about $8000 to $12,000. We try to sell the complete drivetrain to recoup our investment and make money on what's left over. If we buy a wrecked car at auction for $10,000, our net return should be $20,000 to $30,000." Behler markets parts mostly through his website, CorvetteSalvage.com. This chart shows what Dino's slaughterhouse sees in an LS3-powered 2010 Corvette.…

Over the past 45 years, I've had some fun with trucks, but I've never wanted to own one. For 30 of those years, in fact, that was also my general feeling about wives. In truth, I did briefly possess an appliance-white 1970 Ford commercial van with a 390-cid V-8 that towed my '71 A-Production Corvette. After a race at Mosport, the truck's engine began running like a dozen doughnuts in a disposal, then it seized. At the time, my net worth matched the average sixth-grader's, so I walked to a junkyard a stone's throw from Cayuga Raceway, where the sympathetic owner conjured a replacement V-8 and a hoist. By sunset, the engine fired. "Now you've got a half-nice truck," Mr. Junkyard said. "You want it?" I asked. I sold it…

"IT IS THEORETICALLY POSSIBLE TO WARP SPACETIME ITSELF, SO YOU'RE NOT ACTUALLY MOVING FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF LIGHT, BUT IT'S ACTUALLY SPACE THAT'S MOVING." —ELON MUSK THE FERRARI LAFERRARI ISN'T A CONCEPT CAR, BUT IT ACHIEVES ITS ELEVATED PERFORMANCE VIA HIGH CONCEPT. SPEED ISSUE . AUGUST 2014 . CARandDRIVER.COM "I'VE DRIVEN CARS THAT HAVE TRIED TO KILL ME BEFORE, BUT NONE WITH SUCH A VAST RéSUMé OF HOMICIDAL KNOW-HOW." THE NIGHT I WAS SCHEDULED TO LEAVE FOR MARANELLO, ITALY, to drive the LaFerrari, Car and Driver hosted a party in New York for the annual auto show. The guests included three racing heroes you'd recognize from the Kodachromes: David Hobbs, Sam Posey, and Brian Redman. These gents hail from the golden age of motorsport, when every race weekend seemed…

ON THE TRACK AND ON THE ROAD, THE MCLAREN P1 WILL TURN YOU INTO A QUIVERING BLOB. "YOU KNOW, NEWTONIAN PHYSICS IS REALLY BORING UNTIL YOU APPLY IT TO RUNNING A JET CAR 1000 MPH." —ANDY GREEN HERE IS A ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF WHAT I UTTERED WHEN I FIRST UNLEASHED THE FULL 903 HORSEPOWER OF THE MCLAREN P1: "[CACKLE, CACKLE] HOLY [BLEEP]! THAT'S … [CACKLE]. I, UH … WOW. [CACKLE]." It was about then that my co-driver reminded me of the pending terminus of the airport runway on which we were driving and the imminent braking zone, which I was now crowding at something like 135 mph. I would tell you our exact speed but, honestly, I haven't a clue what it was. I never thought to look down at…

THE NEW BABY LAMBO IS TOO SLIPPERY TO KILL BUGS, AND LIKELY TOO DOCILE TO KILL SUPERCAR NOVICES. YOU EXPECT A LOT OF THINGS TO HAPPEN WHEN YOU DRIVE A LAMBORGHINI HURACáN. IT'S A SUPERCAR, AFTER ALL, CAPABLE of 202 mph and running from zero to 60 mph in an estimated 2.9 seconds. It starts at more than $240,000 and is powered by a 602-hp, 5.2-liter V-10. You expect intimidation and excitement. What you don't expect is that this car is woefully ineffective at killing bugs. Well, it'll kill them on the front bumper, but the windshield is so steeply raked that bugs miss the front glass entirely; it was free of viscera even after several hours of high-speed driving. The Huracán is an entirely new Lamborghini. But it is…

Subaru has never been afraid to walk its own path. From its first mass-market passenger car—the rear-engined, two-cylinder, two-stroke Subaru 360—to the import-duty-skirting Subaru BRAT of the 1970s and '80s, the company built its reputation filling niches before other manufacturers knew those niches existed. But after watching larger rivals hit the big time with models such as the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry, Subaru finally decided it was time to nudge the brand away from the left of the dial. It introduced the larger, less funky Legacy to the U.S. market in 1990. While the car had its loyalists, packing as it did the brand's trademark flat-four engine and optional four-wheel drive, it never established a sufficient fan base to bring mainstream success. As the Forester, XV Crosstrek, and Outback…

Not so long ago, heavy-duty pickups were agricultural workhorses with all the amenities of a covered wagon. While the segment's continual one-upmanship ensures that each new iteration is larger, tougher, and more sophisticated than the heavy-duty truck that came before, GMC's latest Sierra 2500HD Denali incorporates levels of refinement heretofore unheard of around the job site. The 2015 GMC Sierra HD and Chevrolet Silverado HD share their light-duty brethren's improvements, and GMC says one out of every four HD trucks it sells is a crew-cab-only Denali model. The Denali amplifies the lesser Sierra's industrial-chic styling with additional touches inside and out, and you can't miss its reflective, rearview-mirror-clogging grille. From behind the wheel, the view is commanding, despite a cabin that envelops you even more, is easier to climb into,…

You'll find a celebration of speed throughout this issue. Because if cars weren't fast, they wouldn't be so thrilling; and if cars weren't powerful, they wouldn't be so fast. Here, we've compiled a data mountain pertaining to speed and power and the companies that move them in the greatest volume in the U.S. Like most good things, automotive performance is best enjoyed in excess, so we've only concerned ourselves with cars that have at least 400 horsepower and can top 150 mph. The lesson? If you want to go really fast, it helps to be really rich. And if you can't be rich, being patriotic is the next-best thing. POWER PLAYERS — Of these companies, only Audi, BMW, and Porsche lacked 600-hp cars in 2013. BMW recently…

If there is ONE THING WE ENJOY more at C/D than driving, it would be arguing. Over everything. From the "right" number of digits after a decimal point, to the correct spelling of "donut," to where we should go for doughnuts. We argue about cars, too, with many such automotive debates taking the form of prognostication. The less high-minded might call it "gambling out of spite." Here you'll find 20 of these predictions-in-dispute with the favorites handicapped. Our stated odds are valid through 2020, or until we all decide that the people who came up with this list are crazy or idiots or crazy idiots.…

Those of us who live near Toyota's U.S. headquarters in Torrance, California, know exactly why the company is moving. Obviously, the firm's accountants have tallied the man-hours lost to Torrance's maddening all-red traffic signaling and decided it would be cheaper to operate in St. Moritz. However, Texas currently pays big cash to locate there, so Christmas came in April for Texas gov Rick Perry and conservative acolytes everywhere when vaunted Toyota picked the Dallas suburb of Plano as its new base of U.S. operations. The ensuing schadenfreude for supposedly overtaxed and overregulated La-La Land exploded like an infected appendix as many Americans crassly triumphed at the plight of 3000 other Americans whose jobs are leaving (plus 1600 Kentuckians whose jobs are also going to Texas). Suddenly, people who don't live…

IF THERE WERE A PERFECT WAY TO CONSTRUCT A CAR, we would have figured it out by now. In 129 years of automotive development, though, the only consensus in the industry seems to be that four wheels are better than three. The perpetual evolution of the automobile, along with a few steadfast traditions, suggests that a great car is more a matter of practical application than scientific theory. Few vehicle pairings make this notion more obvious than the Porsche 911 Carrera and the BMW M4, two icons that couldn't be more different, mechanically speaking. What's the right way to build a car? Engine ahead of or behind the driver? Naturally aspirated or turbocharged? Interactive three-pedal transmission or a heroically quick automatic? These two cars propose an alternate answer: D) All…

STILL ALL IT'S CRACKED UP TO BE? WELL, YES AND NO. IMAGINE HOW MUCH BETTER YOUR LIFE WOULD BE IF 150 MPH WERE LEGAL. Commuting times would be slashed—especially if you also fantasize that there's no traffic—and road trips to Disney World would be so short that you'd have to listen to the Frozen soundtrack only three or four times each way. You'd spend thousands more on fuel but save hours every week and days every year. Time, the man said, is the only irreplaceable commodity. Then there's the visceral joy of speed itself, that sensation of running rather than walking, of being very productive, of getting it the hell done. You'd get to experience the true potential of a modern car, rather than the scant percentage of its talent…

Like its spirit animal, the massive, majestic American buffalo, the American-made Mercedes-Benz GL450 is ideally suited to the wide-open spaces of our vast continent, where it can roam widely, consuming a vast amount of natural resources. Like the buffalo, the GL once ran with huge herds—in this case, of full-size SUVs across North America. Times have changed for these mechanical bovines from when nearly a million Americans bought them every year. In 2013, the class managed only about 350,000 sales. But the GL is a survivor. This second-generation GL, which arrived for the 2013 model year, has been outselling the Cadillac Escalade and Lincoln Navigator combined. To check the health of the dominant member of the luxury-SUV class, and because we have children and junk to carry (and junky cars…

The 2015 model year marks the seventh for the GT-R, and nearly every turn of the calendar has come with incremental updates from Nissan, stretching the envelope of a car we initially called "big, heavy, and incredible." The portfolio grows this year to include a NISMO—Nissan Motorsports—model, and all three of our initial adjectives still ring true. NISMOizing the GT-R makes it a little bigger, stretching the car's length by 0.5 inch with new bodywork. This includes an integrated splitter and a raised rear wing that, according to Nissan, increase downforce at 186 mph by 220 pounds without affecting the car's 0.26 drag coefficient. At 3883 pounds, the NISMO is still a heavy beast and only a scant two pounds lighter than a 2014 GT-R Track Edition. With engine modifications—including…

CD: How did you become so passionate about cars? JR: I always liked mechanical objects from a young age. Luigi Chinetti's Ferrari dealership was about 12 miles from my parents' house in New Rochelle [New York], and when I was a kid I used to ride my bike there on Saturdays. And eventually he let me sit in the cars and turn the steering wheels. Those were kind of magical times. And Mr. Chinetti was a real privateer. He'd buy Ferraris, and I remember they'd lighten them by drilling holes into them. My dream was always to drive race cars on the road. Chinetti's dream for me was to get me to pay him so he could race at Le Mans. He had a 512 S that he wanted to…

Throttle flat, the TURBO V-6 KEENING, I'm whistling along at more than 150 mph in sixth gear, running the wrong way over the famous yard of bricks at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. At the 400-foot marker, I boot the brakes with every erg of lower-body strength I can muster. The horizon jumps a notch, my belts inflict pain as I click the left paddle four times. There's a puff of smoke from the right-front tire as I ease off the brakes and wrench the steering into a tight 90. Across the apex, the wheel chatters understeer. Honda Performance Development (HPD) has pitched me into the deep end of the IndyCar pool three days before the inaugural Indianapolis Grand Prix. I want to believe this exclusive simulator drive is the just…

Track Clinic Track days are LOADS OF FUN, but they can be intimidating. They are rare opportunities to drive largely without restrictions, but learning a new track takes time and money and comes with risks to you and your car. This is the first of many detailed guides to some of the most celebrated circuits in North America, based on the track-tutorial books from our friends at Skip Barber Racing [see page 8]. The next few pages will help you ease into your first laps at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca (MRLS). But if you find yourself in Laguna's paddock with a brain bucket and an overwhelming sense of dread, don't be afraid to strike up a conversation with the quiet guy standing next to a modified Honda CRX Si. Racetracks…

"I WANNA GO FAST!" —RICKY BOBBY, TALLADEGA NIGHTS "YOU WANT SPEED? WE'VE GOT IT IN THE COSMOS. On Earth, if you live in the midlatitudes, Earth's rotation is carrying you and the atmosphere you breathe sideways—due east—at about 800 mph. If you're an equator dweller, that speed is 1000 mph. Santa, on the North Pole, has no sideways motion at all. His cottage simply pirouettes once per day. Problem is, our planet rotates so smoothly that you don't even feel it. What fun is that? The rotating Earth also orbits the sun, in a nearly circular path, at about 67,000 mph. It moves so smoothly through space, you don't feel that, either. What fun is that? The sun, with its formidable gravitational force, drags all its planets, moons, comets, and…

SPEED ISSUE . AUGUST 2014 . CARandDRIVER.COM "I THINK THAT EVERY ASPECT OF SPEED MATTERS … CORNERING SPEED, SPEED OF REACTION, SPEED OF ENGINE RESPONSE, SPEED OF BRAKING RESPONSE." —CHRISTIAN VON KOENIGSEGG + INDEPENDENTS OF SPEED, EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN VON KOENIGSEGG Age: 42 Hometown: Stockholm, Sweden Company: Koenigsegg Automotive AB; 62 employees at its 43,000-square-foot Swedish headquarters, located on the Ängelholm airfield. Past projects: The first CC8S was delivered to a customer in 2002, and its successor, the 806-hp CCR, briefly held the record for the world's fastest production car (until the Veyron came along). Since then we've had the CCX and the Agera. Current project: The Agera-based One:1 is named after both its metric power output of 1 megawatt (1341 horses) and its power-to-weight ratio of 1 hp/kg. C/D: Does…

"PREPARE SHIP FOR LUDICROUS SPEED." —COLONEL SANDURZ, SPACEBALLS FLUSH AS WE ARE WITH NUTTY PERFORMANCE CARS AT THE MOMENT, we should remember that automobiles as quick as the Porsche 918 don't come along too often. In 2008, the quickest (and fastest) production car we had ever tested was the Bugatti Veyron 16.4. It could hit 60 mph in 2.5 seconds and burn the quarter-mile in 10.1 ticks. The Porsche 918 crushes the original million-dollar car with a 2.2-second sprint to 60 mph and a 9.8-second quarter-mile time. To put that in perspective, 0.3 second is about how long it takes you to blink. As acceleration times shrink, their deltas become increasingly larger percentage gains, so the 918's third-of-a-second edge over the Veyron represents an astounding achievement. To wit: Algebra problem…

THIS MONTH 2015 subaru legacy 2.5¡ / 2015 nissan gt-r nismo / 2015 mercedes-benz b-class ED / 2015 gmc sierra 2500hd DENALI COUPE 2015 BMW i8 Destination: the future. by Don Sherman A funny thing happened on the way to our first U.S. drive of BMW's i8 plug-in hybrid: We spotted, trundling along in the next lane, a DeLorean DMC-12 with the inevitable TME MCHN vanity plate, a reference to 1985's Back to the Future. Was this a divine prophecy about our forthcoming trip or merely a California coincidence? John Z. DeLorean aspired to sell an "ethical" sports car allegedly safer than conventional two-seaters of his day. BMW's buzzword is "sustainable," but the intent is the same. Minus, of course, the part about DeLorean being charged with trafficking cocaine…

If you had your heart set on an old Benz R-class neo-minivan but felt it was a mite hulky for your tastes, prepare yourself for electric motoring. The Mercedes-Benz B-class Electric Drive is Benz's new wagonoid, created to zip silently through suburbia. It's Tesla-powered, though not built in Tesla's Fremont, California, plant. (Recall that Daimler owns 4.1 percent of Elon Musk's perennial disrupter.) Though the B is built alongside its internal-combusting brethren in Rastatt, Germany, its 28-kWh battery pack, 177-hp electric motor, and associated electronics are assembled at the former GM-Toyota plant now occupied by Tesla. Mercedes expects this buzzless B to garner an EPA range estimate of 85 miles, which is a smidge less than a third of the Tesla's range with its 85-kWh pack. However, the base price,…