Indholdsfortegnelse for October 2015 i MotorTrend

COMPARISON | 2015 BMW M3 VS. 2016 Cadillac ATS-V VS. 2015 Mercedes-AMG C63 S Do you remember exactly when it was that cars—high-performance sedans in this case—got so dang good? I don’t. The BMW M3, yeah, sure, that has always been special. Other carmakers have taken furtive jabs at the M3, but no one seemed willing to put in the development time necessary to deliver the knockout blow. Every once in a while a muscular middleweight rose up to challenge the Bavarian champ—Audi’s exquisitely lunatic B7 RS4 springs to mind—but then BMW’s boffins would tweak the formula and wind up back on top. Mercedes’ in-house gang of maniacs (aka AMG) has done admirable work on the previous iterations of the C63. But should you find yourself at a track with…

CAMPING, COACHELLA, DONUTS— HERE’S WHAT IT’S LIKE TO DAILY DRIVE A SUPERCAR My dad always told me that if I shut up and work hard, I’ll be rewarded, and I’ve largely found that to be true. We at Motor Trend work long hours, stay up late to hit deadlines, and spend more time than we’d like on the road away from our families. The hard work pays off, though—have you seen our recent long-termer? As our social media followers well know, we had a pristine 2015 Lamborghini Huracán in our possession for a short long-term test. Considering Lamborghini was handing us the keys to a brand-new, $278,345 supercar, the restrictions placed on us were surprisingly light: We couldn’t performance test it, and had to keep the trip odometer under 5,000.…

AT SOME POINT I lost count of the turned heads, the cameras, and the pointing strangers, dumbfounded at what they were seeing. “It has a roof rack!” The reactions ranged from excitement to horror as we drove the Huracán through the parking lot at the local grocery store. I have a feeling the folks around Big Bear, California, don’t see a Lamborghini very often—least of all with a roof basket full of firewood. Custom mounting hardware, AeroBlade crossbars, and the Canyon 859 roof basket from Thule allowed us to load the Lambo up for camping. We ended up with ample space for everything my wife and I needed, fitting food and a small cooler in the Lambo’s frunk, the rest of our camping gear on the roof. Like any good…

This year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans race proved once again how ineptly Formula 1’s power brokers have handled the transition to high-tech hybrid powertrains. Most of the race featured an enthralling battle between the Porsche 919 and Audi R18 e-tron Quattro hybrids. And no one complained about the noise the cars made. Like F1, sports car racing’s elite category— LMP1—features cars powered by fiendishly complex hybrid powertrains. However, F1 powertrain designers, from Ferrari to Renault to Mercedes-Benz, are all forced to build more or less exactly the same thing: a 1.6-liter, turbocharged V-6 attached to sundry energy recovery, energy generation, and energy storage systems. The LMP1 regulations, by contrast, are framed to reward powertrain designs that deliver efficiency and performance. The internal combustion component of the powertrain must be…

A Ferrari-inspired 3.0-liter, twinturbo six-cylinder producing 503 horsepower. If that doesn’t convince you that Alfa Romeo’s just-released Giulia sedan in topspec, M3-crushing Quadrifoglio trim isn’t a serious contender, you might want to check your pulse. Oh, and the Giulia will hit 60 in just 3.9 seconds. Italian automaker in sales. The Giulia also represents the first mainstream Alfa Romeo model to be sold in the North American market since the brand left in the mid-1990s. Although we only got a preview of the M3-fighting RWD Quadrifoglio, Alfa plans to release a whole range of Giulias, starting with a 1.4-liter, turbocharged, four-cylinder base model. Four- and six-cylinder diesel variants will also be made, but it’s not clear whether they will come to American shores. Mechanically, the Giulia ticks off all the…

THE KIINOTE When not at his day job, 55-year-old Takumi Kurosawa enjoys surfing eBay for parts for his beloved 1987 Nissan 300ZX, which he bought in California and had shipped back to Japan. He knows the Z inside and out and can repair any part of the car all by himself, a welcome benefit of being a former Z engine builder. His current job? Overseeing Nissan’s ultra-select group of takumi—it means artisan in Japanese, and yes, that’s his real name—the five folks tasked with hand-assembling the 545-600-horsepower, VR38DETT, 3.8-liter, twin-turbo V-6 in Nissan’s GT-R supercar. The VR engine assembly takes place inside Nissan’s Yokohama Plant No. 2, a large, nondescript white and gray facility that also houses production of the MR engine family (1.6-, 1.8-, and 2.0-liter I-4s), whose production…

FIRST DRIVE | 2016 Cadillac CTS-V If we had a nit to pick, this would be it: Everything is just too easy. In a fast car, there are six places on Road America’s 4-mile track where your speeds can exceed 100 mph—and twice they can reach more than 150 mph. Without any modifications or special procedures, the 2016 Cadillac CTS-V hammered the track at these triple-digit speeds, three or four hot laps at a time, until the tank was empty. The car’s formula and specifications have been known for some time but warrant a brief review: Insert the driveline of a hardcore Corvette into a luxurious Cadillac sedan, make it corner and stop with authority, let enthusiasts “enthuse” themselves into a froth, and hope they mention it in the same…

COACHELLA IS A HUGE yearly music festival held in the California desert, and most concertgoers stay at hotels or rent houses nearby, but many car-camp onsite. I decided to do that, too—in our Huracán. I initially had no intention of attending Coachella. Early on in the MT Lambo planning process, I jokingly mentioned the idea of camping at Coachella. At the last minute, I was given the OK. It normally takes weeks to plan a Coachella trip, and festivalgoers often camp in roomy vans. We had two days to plan, no passes, and only enough space for a small suitcase in the Lambo's frunk. All of these concerns were overpowered by the ridiculousness of camping in a Lamborghini at Coachella. It had to happen. My girlfriend and I scrambled, finding…

I WANTED TO GET OUR Lamborghini in a low-budget music video, both as a stunt and to give an up-and-coming artist a boost, but my contact with a reputable director fell through. Naturally, I had a backup plan. It involved Craigslist. I had my doubts whether anyone would take it seriously, but I put up a post advertising free use of the Huracán anyway. I got a handful of responses and picked the applicant who sent not only a head shot and a link to his song but who also had already scheduled a shoot and was ready to move. My wife pointed out I’d agreed to take a Lamborghini to meet a stranger who replied to a Craigslist ad and whom I’d only spoke to via email. She implored…

You’d be forgiven for missing a piece of government news at the end of June that was drowned out by the considerable commotion caused by some momentous Supreme Court verdicts. The EPA’s proposed fuel efficiency and carbon pollution standards for heavy-duty trucks didn’t make frontpage/top-of-the-hour news headlines, and because very few of you drive big-rig trucks for a living, you probably didn’t pay much attention. But the implications are huge, and they will affect all of us. These Phase 2 standards build on those phasing in between 2014 and 2018 that will result in a 16 percent reduction in fuel use relative to 2010 levels. The new ones take effect from 2021 to 2027, reducing Class 7 and 8 semi-tractor consumption by a further 24 percent via any means feasible:…

FIRST DRIVE | 2015 Honda Civic Type R (European Spec) With a wing big enough to serve a five-course meal on, this hatch looks the absolute business. It’s perhaps a bit unfair, but we tend to have high expectations of Honda. Back in the day, the automaker regularly conjured up impossibly elegant, simple solutions to engineering problems that other companies could only fix by adding complexity. Each invention would be armed with an abbreviation (CVCC, VTEC, SH-AWD, for example) that would change the automotive world. These days, Honda’s ingenuity has slowed to a trickle, mostly following rather than leading. The company, which hasn’t used a turbo in our market since the 2007-2012 Acura RDX, is now following the rest of the industry down the path of turbocharging for fuel economy.…

THE SIGNS WERE THERE. My gut said that my husband and I should definitely not take the Huracán on a snowboarding trip up to Mammoth. First red flag: The Thule setup we had planned to use to transport our boards wasn’t going to be ready until after our trip. Luckily, SeaSucker came to the rescue and sent us a snowboard rack with vacuum cups, but we still weren’t in the clear. SeaSucker advised applying the vacuum cups to a smooth surface, but the Huracán’s only smooth surfaces are its windshield and glass engine cover. After picking the latter, we were faced with another obstacle: SeaSucker recommended driving below 70 mph. Give someone 602 hp and see how long they can keep it below 70. As if that weren't enough stress,…

IN OUR FIELD OF WORK, it’s easy to forget just how special something like a Lamborghini is. We’re lucky to have the opportunity to spend personal time with cars such as the Lambo, and it’s nice to spread that love around. The bug to use our loaner to do something nice bit during my first weekend with the Huracán. After giving rides to neighbors, including one who lives in his minivan, I was inspired. I hadn’t seen him smile so much in months. If 602 horses could make one down-on-his-luck man that happy, then I wanted to do the same for even more people. I knew I wanted to spread the Lambo love to those fighting cancer, so I contacted UCLA’s Chase Child Life Program to arrange ride-alongs for some…