Indholdsfortegnelse for Jun-15 i Car and Driver

Sic your dogs on us at: editors@caranddriver.com or join the discussion at: backfires.caranddriver.com WHAT THE TRUCK? So how much crap are you going to get over the March cover? A pickup on the cover of Car and Driver. Well, I think it's cool. I live in northern Idaho, and we drive trucks. I like to read about the cars and dream, but most of them would be just a little impractical here. The one car we have is a Hemi Dodge Charger, and it has four-wheel drive. And now we can't buy a Hemi with four-wheel drive. Maybe a Raptor someday. CLAY HESSON OROFINO, IDAHO The March issue of Car and Driver has a picture of a Ford F-150 Raptor on it. I guess next month's issue of…

Last year, according to auto-industry paint giant PPG, white was the most popular car color in North America for the fourth year running. Before white took the top spot, America clutched silver to her steely heart for a full decade. Add up white, black, gray, and silver, and you've accounted for the paint jobs on 72 percent of new cars sold in 2014—nearly three in four are, essentially, colorless. C'mon, people. By our count, a person buying a car today can choose from nearly 1300 different hues (not including the nearly limitless offerings of some high-end companies' personalization programs). Of the 1284 available hues, 829 are actual colors, not just grayscale. And at least 207 of the automotive industry's 237 grays and silvers are extraneous, anyway: A recent study suggests…

CASUAL CAR SHOWS CAN'T GET BY WITHOUT GOVERNANCE. One of the downsides of getting older is an inability to stay up late. Which goes hand in glove with a corresponding imperative to wake up at 5:30 a.m., when there's nothing to do but lie in bed obsessing over stuff that you can't do anything about at 5:30 a.m. However, in Los Angeles, thanks to some people whose enthusiasm for cars shames us all, there is something to do before dawn on the weekend besides try to recall all the X-rays you've ever had and wonder if they'll cause cancer. Saturday and Sunday mornings are for the disorganized car show. This is a ritualistic gathering of local car people at some parking lot in the vast suburban sprawl, where for a…

MERCEDES-AMG GT S PRICE > $151,075 POWER > 503 hp TORQUE > 479 lb-ft WEIGHT > 3677 lb C/D OBSERVED MPG > 11 PORSCHE 911 CARRERA GTS PRICE > $138,750 POWER > 430 hp TORQUE > 325 lb-ft WEIGHT > 3276 lb C/D OBSERVED MPG > 13 JAGUAR F-TYPE R COUPE PRICE > $110,845 POWER > 550 hp TORQUE > 502 lb-ft WEIGHT > 4088 lb C/D OBSERVED MPG > 11 For the last five decades, the toughest question for any buyer of a high-end sports car has been: "How do I not end up with a 911?" To describe Porsche's most famous product as a default choice is a faint-praise damning of what has become the world's most iconic sports car. But it's also an acknowledgment that to get…

In 2014, Cadillac poached, from Infiniti, one of the auto industry's most celebrated and outspoken execs. It also showed the 464-hp ATS-V and the 640-hp CTS-V, and said that it will be renaming its lineup using designations beginning with either CT (cars) or XT (trucks) followed by a number. But nothing it did generated more hand-wringing than the brand's announcement that it was moving its headquarters from Detroit to New York City. Chief among the justifications for the move was to physically separate Cadillac from the rest of General Motors, the better to foster a distinct product portfolio. But that process is already underway. Cadillac's ATS and the new CTS boast a segment-defining excellence absent in many GM products. Introduced for the 2014 model year, the third-generation CTS—particularly in 420-hp,…

TESTED Refined and linear turbo power, more of a Ferrari yet still daily-driver practical. The $1500 options are the cheap ones, small annoyances not found in a Hyundai. Suntanned California has always been a place where people come to experiment with their identity. Thus, the name is perfect for Ferrari's lowest-priced model, which has been an experiment since it first hit the streets in 2009. It was the first roadgoing Ferrari to put a V-8 in front of its driver and the first with a power-retractable hardtop, and its price and daily practicality took Ferrari on a low pass through the market. It probably should have been a Maserati, as it would have done far more to elevate that brand than it does for Ferrari, but the ball didn't bounce…

The Chinese auto industry finally reaches America, by way of Sweden. China's first foray into the U.S. auto market won't be a farcical parade of mechanical calamities and odoriferous plastics echoing the arrival of the Koreans in the second half of the 1980s. That's because the Chinese, in addition to owning America's largest pork producer and holding $1.3 trillion in U.S. debt, also own Volvo. By proxy, that makes this XC90—the first all-new vehicle released since Chinese carmaker Geely acquired the brand in 2010—China's premiere incursion onto our roads. As the folks in the Volvo jackets tell it, Geely promises to play this one hands-off as long as the brand makes money, and we're inclined to believe them. The new XC90 is every bit as Swedish as we've come to…

SCRUTINEERING A CAR WITH MANY NAMES Internally it's known as the P13. Officially its name is 570S. But McLaren insiders also refer to this car as the Sports Series, a term that encompasses the full low-end range, including future spider and long-tail variants. McLAREN'S ENTRY-LEVEL CAR IS ACTUALLY LARGER THAN ITS BIG BROTHER. THE 570S MEASURES 0.7 INCH LONGER AND IS MARGINALLY TALLER AND WIDER THAN THE 650S. Just as German carmakers have mastered the art of slicing sausages into different lengths, such that an Audi A6 seems like just a foot-long hot dog to the A4 ballpark frank, McLaren's staple ingredients are now being spread over a full menu. It ranges from the Big Mac—the million-dollar P1—to this new value-oriented 570S from the, uh, 180,000-dollar menu. With the 570S,…

ALFA ROMEO 4C We all like FIRM, solid-feeling brake pedals. But even on good per formance cars, modern brakes often feel vaguely synthetic, with more pedal travel than seems strictly necessary. Then there's the Alfa Romeo 4C. Its creators wanted the 4C to have a hard edge. "Our goal in development was to deliver the racing feeling and sensation," says Alberto Cavaggioni, head of Alfa's marketing, planning, and brand development. "We wanted the brakes to work more on brake pressure than travel." And so they do: Travel is short, the pedal has no give, and the brakes bite hard. A braking system is fairly simple; there's a pedal, a booster, hydraulic lines, and calipers. How did Alfa make its brakes so radically different, more like a race car's than a…

Back in college, I got the idea that I wanted a V-8–powered Volvo 240. The V-8 Volvo is synonymous with Ross Converse, a mad genius whose brochure included a photo of a diesel-badged 240 doing a righteous burnout. I loved the notion of a sleeper 240 packing a Mustang 302, so I arranged a visit with Converse at his house in Portland, Maine. I was hoping he'd have a completed car that I could check out, and he did. But it wasn't quite the ratty 240 that I might plausibly afford. There in his driveway was a brand-new 960 wagon that looked stock except for aftermarket wheels and a big exhaust tip. "This is a clone to the cars I did for David Letterman and Paul Newman," he said. "Want…

The HR-V draws deeply on past and present. In many ways, it's a throwback to the best things 20th-century Honda ever did, such as elegant interiors, sweet suspension tuning, and well-considered details. And then it goes all Kendrick-Lamar-pimpin'-butterflies for its power train, electronics, even its very concept: This Honda is merely the latest to join the growing ranks of 21st-century micro-utes. What exactly constitutes a crossover is elusive when shrunk to twerp size. Nissan's Juke is self-consciously quirky; the Chevrolet Trax [see page 102] is handsomely uncomplicated; Jeep's new Renegade mixes rugged heritage with adorable details; what exactly Fiat is doing with the 500X is, uh, interesting; and the upcoming Mazda CX-3 looks unpretentiously promising. But even if this is a messy newborn segment whose rules await discipline, the baby…

THIS MONTH FORD EDGE / FERRARI CALIFORNIA T / CHEVROLET TRAX / PORSCHE MACAN S / 2016 VOLVO XC90 / VOLKSWAGEN GOLF SPORTWAGEN The GT division heads down-market, but nobody's complaining. The Cayman GT4 does a neat trick: It is both reassuringly familiar and radically different at the same time. Nobody conversant in GT-badged Porsche 911s is going to be offended or surprised by the way it drives, or by the clinical competence with which it demolishes a racetrack. But the idea of a current GT Porsche that doesn't have its engine hung behind its rear axle goes against the norm. Then there's the $85,595 price, batshit money for a Cayman, yet the cheapest GT Porsche ever. That the GT4 exists at all is because Porsche gave it an engine…

TESTED An attractive SUV whose size is inversely proportional to its refinement. Slow to accelerate, lackluster fuel economy. In this episode of "Badge Engineering: GM," the Chev rolet Trax gets the better of its Buick Encore cast-mate. Following the Encore's lead, the Trax is Chevrolet's entry into a new class of diminutive SUVs, one occupied by the Honda HR-V, Jeep Renegade, Mazda CX-3, and the Nissan Juke. But the Trax is more interesting than its Buick twin for two reasons. First, the Trax, with its flared fenders, doesn't look like a chrome-laden potato. Second, Chevy charges roughly $4000 less than Buick. The Trax is tiny on the outside—it's less than one inch longer than an old air-cooled Porsche 911—but remarkably spacious within. A six-foot passenger can fit comfortably behind a…

Manuals duly saved, this big-carrying, small-driving hatch still has to wait a bit longer for four-wheel drive. If good things come to those who wait, do better things come by waiting longer? Nearly two years after it went on sale in Europe, the Volks-wagen Golf SportWagen replaced the aging Jetta wagon in U.S. dealerships in April. As with other Golfs, the delay stemmed from equipping VW's Puebla, Mexico, plant to build our version. Just over a foot longer and 100 pounds heavier than the Golf, the SportWagen feels much like the 10Best-winning, seventh-generation hatchbacks. The virtues of the MQB platform's rigid structure, tight assembly, and driver-friendly character carry over but with an expanded cargo bay. With the rear seat folded, cargo capacity of 67 cubic feet exceeds that of the…

CORVETTE SIMMER I have held my tongue for some time now because I could not really quantify my opinion of the new Corvette and its variants ["The Name Game," March 2014]. I had thought it was something along the lines of: "Just because you have the technology to mold fiberglass panels with tight creases at juxtaposed angles doesn't mean you should." But there was something more that bothered me. I was on "the throne" with the March issue, casually turning the pages, and got to page 40. WHAM! The full-on frontal image smacked me between the eyes. Those snarky eyes, the little V-nose, and the gaping maw. Straight out of the Pixar design studio. If it were a still on a video, you could push play and the car would…

COLLECTING TOYOTAS. Lots of people live in the mountains. I live on a mountain. Not the top, exactly. But I can see the top from my porch. The driveway leading to Dead Loss Ranch is a two-mile festival of filth—sucking mud, ice suitable for skating, ruts that sometimes flip ATVs, razors of granitic outcroppings, and a pair of mountain lions (Sid and Nancy) that recently tried to eat Red Schields's dogs at 1 a.m. The road is navigable at walking speed only. Last month, my wife realized she needed the sort of vehicle that could handle, say, Mosul after the big drone strikes. She liked a black Volkswagen Tiguan (too little ground clearance), a Honda HR-V (ditto, also not available), then drove everything badged by Subaru. While testing a silver…

The eccentric tenor of Austin, Texas, goes so far beyond the stereotypes that it could pass for paro dy. In the city's South Congress neighborhood, for example, you get your kale juice, fried chicken, and breakfast tacos not from a food truck, but from food Airstreams and food shipping containers. The local thrift shop shares a wall with American Apparel, and everybody pretends not to notice that the hipster counterculture is funded by Range Rover drivers quaffing $20 cocktails. The off-kilter atmosphere is so pervasive here that it's normal. What is truly strange in Austin is brash, unashamed indulgence and capitalism without the pretense of keeping Austin weird. Like a $63,660 sports coupe from a brand so tragically unhip that it's relocating people to New York City with the hope…

Can WAZE, the world's most popular cop-spotting app, enable an orange blur of a McLaren to streak across Florida undetected? we head to ALLIGATOR ALLEY to find out. Waze, if you've not heard of it, is the greatest driving app ever devised. Scratch that—it's the greatest invention of the 21st century, a glorious manifestation of the connected utopia, the latest evidence that if The Singularity arrives tomorrow, I'm okay with it. Because Waze, my friends, tells you where the cops are. More specifically, other drivers tell you where the cops are through Waze. You see a cop, you tag him by pressing an icon on your phone or tablet, and a moment later he shows up on the navigation screens of your fellow travelers. Oh, how cops hate it.…

Have you driven a Ford lately? Any Ford? Then you'll probably spot something familiar in the 2015 Edge. The mid-size crossover's product-development team appears to have gone around Dearborn systematically looking for contributions from its cohorts, stone-soup style. The Escape's influence shows in the Edge's sculpted sides and straked hood, while the grille looks borrowed from a Taurus. The instrument panel and switchgear were taken directly from the corporate larder, and the door inserts could have been poached from a Mustang. The Edge's new top-of-the-line engine comes courtesy of the F-150, while the Fusion's CD4 platform underpins it. Higher-quality finishes abound, most noticeably in the interior. But nothing will be so unfamiliar to previous Edge owners that they'll think there was a screw-up at the dealership and they somehow bought…

TESTED Proof you don't need to blow money on interior or exterior options. Short on low-end power, soft brake pedal, dull steering. Porsche doesn't make yoga pants. At least not yet. What it does make is the Macan, an Audi Q5–based crossover that slots into the lineup below the larger Cayenne. But judging by the reactions of women of a certain age to Porsche's smallest ute, the Macan might just be the vehicular equivalent of wearing tight black pants in a hot room. The fawning isn't surprising. Porsche's newest SUV is a fairly irresistible redo of Audi's architecture. Aside from the compact size, there is no obvious visual connection to the Q5. Porsche's designers went to work inside and out, and though our test car lacked a leather-wrapped instrument panel,…

C/D: Do you miss the family thrill show? JC3: My grandfather started that thrill show in 1943, and my family ran it until 1998. That's 55 years. I spent 20 years of my life traveling around the country; we'd leave Tampa every June and not come back until October. You'd finish up a show at night, settle up with the promoter, drive for I don't know how many hours, and sleep at a truck stop or rest area. Then you'd get to your next destination, break out the equipment, and do your show at eight o'clock that night. That was our routine. Our experiences weren't so glamorous. I learned so much from working for my family back then. And those things serve me well. But if someone were to offer…