Indholdsfortegnelse for July 2010 i MotorTrend

HAVING invested heavily in the Chevy Volt’s plug-in hybrid Voltec powertrain, GM plans to leverage the technology as much as it can. A fashionably tweaked version of the Volt will be sold in Europe as the Opel Ampera, while the regular Volt goes on sale in China next year. The Volt MPV5 concept, which made its debut at the Beijing show, shows a Voltec-powered crossover is probably in the works too. Though officially a concept, the somewhat unimaginatively named Volt MPV5 is built using a lot of existing Volt hardware, and wouldn’t be difficult to turn into a production vehicle. The big changes are all dimensional: The Volt MPV5 features a 0.6-inch stretch in the wheelbase, compared with the regular Volt, and is 7.1 inches longer, 2.8 inches wider, and…

YES, BMW says it will produce the Gran Coupe concept. As what? As unveiled at the Beijing auto show, it looks like a Mercedes-Benz CLS/Audi A7 competitor, a “four-door sport coupe.” The concept has a B-pillar with frameless doors. But it’s actually a major hint of the 2012 6 Series two-door coupe (and convertible). That’s not to say BMW won’t produce a four-door version, like the concept. It’s impossible to think of BMW avoiding a luxury subsegment that its two main rivals successfully exploit. BMW says the Gran Coupe concept measures almost 197 inches, or about 2.9 inches shorter than a 7 Series and 3.8 inches longer than the new 5 Series. At 55.1 inches, the Gran Coupe is over three inches lower than either conventional sedan. The Gran Coupe…

A NEW, small, aerodynamic Saab 92, or 9-2 in modern parlance, in the mold of the Volkswagen New Beetle, Mini, and Fiat 500, is farther along than you think. Spyker founder Victor Muller has a fully cooked design proposal on his BlackBerry. While Spyker’s business plan for Saab doesn’t budget for the car, additional financing could. Russian money? Perhaps. Initial talks with General Motors on the sale of Saab broke down after the Swedish government investigated whether there are ties between Spyker investor Vladimir Antonov and the Russian mob. Antonov withdrew and talks resumed, but the Russian industrialist called mob ties “surreal allegations” and is said to be arranging production of Saab cars in Moscow. He has since loaned Muller’s Spyker $100 million, which could be converted to equity. As…

history lesson Packard was more than a leader in prestige class cars during the Great Depression (“The American Brands That Didn’t Make It,” April). It was the class leader before, during, and after the 1930s Depression. During the initial 18 months after Charles Wilson, GM president, took a leave of absence to become U.S. Secretary of Defense in January 1953, he canceled $329 million worth of defense contracts held by Packard and Studebaker. This denied the merged companies’ Utica-Bend division the profitable military business S-P needed to adequately finance its car-development projects. As a result, and because of unwise management decisions and sharp sales declines during the two recessions of the 1950s, Packard production was terminated. While much of this loss of military business was tied to the end of…

AVID FANS of the sport will recall in vivid detail the outcome of last season’s pony playoffs, in which team Chevy’s rookie Camaro SS won a narrow buzzer-shot victory over Ford’s restyled and abundantly chassis-tweaked fifth-generation Mustang GT. Dodge’s then-new 5.7-liter Hemi-powered R/T variant of the retro-chic Challenger warmed the bench in third place—a result that incited an angry mob of apparently well-heeled Dodge fans to hurl vitriolic letters at us like so many Bobby Knight folding chairs: “Why didn’t you eejits pit the SRT8 against the equally powerful and torquey Camaro SS!?!!! Cancel and Refund my $8 subscription immediately!!!!! That tournament was organized according to price, but now that we realize that pony buyers’ horsepower demand is unfettered by budgetary constraints, we’re prepared to relax that regulation. The top…

TRADITIONALLY, small-car offerings in the U.S. have been penalty boxes: loud, unrefined, and decontented people-movers we drove because we had to, not because we wanted to. No one struggled more at building a decent compact than the domestic automakers. The solution is in balancing features and affordability. Cheap, decontented cars excite no one, but premium small cars lose buyers to the midsize segment. Until now automakers doing business in the U.S. have simply accepted this trend, but as a wave of downsizing fueled by volatile gas prices and concern for the environment washes over the U.S. auto market, Ford and several of its key competitors are looking to the compact and midsize segments to replace sagging SUV sales. It should be noted that the Fiesta isn’t Ford’s first attempt at…

1970 THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA Motor Trend held its first Import Car of the Year contest in 1970. Porsche’s mid-engine 914 won, and the staff wanted to make a big splash of it. Shooter Fred Enke went big, for sure—the barge was more than 80 feet long. This oddly conceived cavalcade set sail from the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro. The female model was an unnamed Petersen Publishing staffer, and the hapless dude in the rowboat was executive editor Dick Wells. The wind was up that day, and the barge nearly overwhelmed the rowboat on numerous occasions. But they got the shot. 1955 SPEEDWEEK Fifty years ago, as today, racing at Daytona was more than just NASCAR stockers. Hot cars of all nationalities and descriptions showed up…

MORE than the chic new LaCrosse or the glittery Enclave, the 2011 Buick Regal takes all your preconceptions about GM’s old-fogey brand and drives them straight into the nearest dumpster. The $26,995 Regal CXL with the 182-horsepower, naturally aspirated, 2.4-liter four under the hood is sleek, stylish, and comprehensively equipped. But the $29,495 Regal CXL Turbo is a genuine sport sedan whose punchy, 220-horse, 258-pound-foot turbocharged Ecotec four and supple yet buttoned-down chassis puts Acura’s homely TSX on notice and seriously makes you wonder whether an Audi A4 is really worth the money. Yep, it’s that good. The Regal CXL Turbo goes on sale in August, two to three months after the CXL hits Buick showrooms in the U.S. The engine delivers a solid surge of acceleration when you nail…

IT’S NICE having a Nissan GT-R waiting in your driveway each morning. I kept our long-termer for a full week—commuting, running to the store, driving my daughter to school, blowing out the cobwebs with some spirited dashes on my favorite civilian Nurburgrings (daughter parked at home). Even if the only thing on the immediate agenda is your drive to work, you know it’s going to be out of the ordinary. Godzilla wouldn’t have it any other way. What I noticed right away is how well our family Godzilla has held up. The odo is nearing 30,000 miles now, and most of those have been clocked with the twin turbos whirling in fury. The GT-R hasn’t complained. It starts easily, idles smoothly, doesn’t creak or rattle. There’s a bit of hiccup…

MUSCLECAR types and magazine road testers were thrilled to have a performance-minded Mustang back in the game. When the reborn Mustang GT came out for 1982, it launched the 5.0-liter Mustang phenom with 157 horsepower, some attention to the engine compartment so things looked better underhood, the Michelin TRX performance wheel/tire package, rumbling dual pipes, and an honest-to-clutch four-speed manual transmission (everyone was pretty sure stickshifts were really on their way out about this time). These cars were pretty quick for the day, and this, plus a new-for-1982 Camaro and Firebird, gave the whole American musclecar scene a much needed lift. The addition of a four-barrel carb upped horsepower to 175 for 1983, and fuel-injection and the 225-horse 5.0 weren’t far behind. And just take a look at that fifth-wheel…

FOR A Lightweight sports car, the Audi R8 Gt is still living the good life. It has no Spartan nylon doorpulls or bare aluminium floor panels and retains the majority of its sound insulation, along with Audi’s quattro all-wheel-drive system, the stereo, and climate-control system. But Audi engineers have shaved 220 pounds from the regular R8 V-10, no easy task when the standard car already boasts an aluminum space frame and magnesium chassis. There’s thinner glass for the windscreen and polycarbonate for the rear window and engine cover, saving 20 pounds. The R8 GT’s sheetmetal is of a lighter gauge, and cutouts were made to the aluminum luggage hatch, while the rear hatch was remolded in carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic, along with the car’s trademark sideblades and rear bumper—another 35 pounds lost.…

HYUNDAI introduced its 2012 Elantra at the automaker’s home market auto show in Seoul. It will be sold there as the Avante, powered by a 138-horse, 1.6-liter direct-injection inline four. Hyundai says the new car with a new six-speed automatic transmission, betters its competition’s fuel efficiency by 10 percent. Sporting Hyundai’s new “fluidic sculpture” design language, the Elantra is very much a Sonata cut down to compact size. Because Hyundai plans no V-6 for the Sonata, the Elantra will be sold here with a smaller engine than the Sonata’s 2.4-liter gas direct-injection four. We predict a 1.8-liter gas direct-injection four for the North American market, making about 150 horsepower.…

BMW has announced its Megacity Vehicle will be released in 2013. Designed for use in the world’s biggest metro areas, the Megacity is an electrically driven vehicle lightened by a lot of carbon fiber in place of steel. The launch date announcement shows how serious the Munich automaker is now taking electric vehicles—previously BMW had only said the Megacity would be out before 2015. There will be three vehicles in the Megacity Vehicle family, bundled together under the Project i moniker: a two-wheeler, a three-wheeler, which steers by leaning like a BMW’s super-exotic Street Carver skateboard, and the model-year-2014 four-wheeler the firm is now beginning to discuss. BMW’s design director Adrian van Hooydonk told Motor Trend that designing the Megacity Vehicle has been a challenge. “It had to be ultra-light…

MERCEDES-BENZ’S 2008 Paris show Fascination concept was a wagon that predicted the latest E-Class. The automaker has done it again, with its 2010 Beijing show Shooting Break concept, which provides us a serious hint at the 2012 CLS-Class. Typical “four-door coupe” elements appear in the Shooting Break, like the slippery arched profile, a swooping character line from front to rear and long, taut bodylines. Slap the Geneva show’s F800 concept’s roofline and trunklid on top of the Shooting Break, and you’ll have a pretty clear idea of what the ’12 CLS looks like.…

AUDI’S fourth-generation A8 may have been the last new Audi that’s substantially bigger than the model it replaces. Sources in Ingolstadt suggest the next-gen Q7, due 2013, will be a smaller, less aggressively styled SUV. While Mercedes plans to extend the wheelbase of the next GL to make even more room for a full-size third row of seats, Audi is toying with the idea to offer two distinctly different Q7 body styles: an XXL seven-seater for China, the Middle East, and North America and a relatively compact five-seater for Europe and the rest of the world. But as Q7 sales have dropped sharply in the course of 2009, Audi is carefully weighing the options. According to the Ingolstadt grapevine, the most pragmatic solution may be to restyle the vehicle on…

ORIGINATING IN the late 1960s, the term “musclecar” has always referred to an American coupe with a robust engine designed to generate stout levels of both speed and power. In other words, a rear-drive, two-door V-8-propelled Yankee capable of producing thunderclouds of Firestone smoke. Today, much remains the same. Take a look at this issue’s comparison test between three modern musclecars—Ford Mustang GT, Chevrolet Camaro SS, and Dodge Challenger SRT8—and you’ll see—all are American designed and engineered (the Chevy and Dodge, it’s worth noting, are assembled in Canada), feature brawny 400-plus-horsepower V-8 engines (the “smollest” displaces 5.0 liters), and are capable of quarter-mile times once reserved for race cars and import supercars (the Mustang GT needs just 12.7 seconds at 111.3 mph). It’s safe to say that today’s collection of…

OVER A year ago we sampled a Korean-built Euro-spec Chevy Cruze and declared it the car that must save GM. Since then we’ve heard an earful about how this global compact will indeed be different—a world-beater that will sell in the U.S. as an aspirational compact (oxymoron alert!). We’ve been assured the proof of the pudding would be in the tasting, and at long last the chefs invited us into the kitchen to lick some beaters as they add the final pinches of tuning calibration and dashes of refinement before the finished Cruze gets dished out this September. Before our taste buds start talking, let’s recap the basics. First, this Cruze shares most hardware with its global doppelgangers, already in production, but our version will be the most refined. Key…

THE BENTLEY Mulsanne doesn’t look like a retro car, but it is. Unlike, say, the New Mini, the New Beetle, or even the New Mustang, the new Mulsanne not a skin-deep styling homage to an iconic ancestor. Even though it drips with 21st-century technology, the new Mulsanne, which replaces the flagship Arnage sedan, is old-school to its very soul. It is the Bentley that was never meant to be, done the way Bentleys were always meant to be. “I have been in this industry for 30 years, and I have done a lot of cars’,’ said Bentley chairman Franz-Josef Paefgen at the global reveal of the Mulsanne at Pebble Beach last August. “And this is all I can do’.’ For Paefgen and his senior management team, including engineering chief Ulrich…

PLEASE ANSWER the following question as honestly as possible. I require a sport/utility vehicle because: (A) I chase gazelle across the Gobi Desert (well, I do some camping in locales without electrical outlets). (B)A huge and rugged vehicle is essential for visiting the farmer’s market, picking up fresh organic greens, and chauffeuring Dacoda to her pottery class. If you answered “B” close this magazine immediately, shred it, place the tatters in your compost heap, and buy a Honda Civic. If you answered “A” however, read on. Gathered here are three industrial-grade sport/utes. And, yea, we’re going stalk through the valley of death. Until the arrival of Jeep’s redesigned Grand Cherokee (just months away at the time of this test), the three grit-tamers gathered here represent the best of their luxurious…

THE NISSAN 370Z convertible doesn’t enter our garage on good terms. Last month, we placed it last in a comparison against BMW Z4, Audi TT S, and Porsche Boxster S. During Car of the Year testing, it didn’t make it past the first cut. We’ve chastised this Z for its coarse engine, abundant noise, and ride harshness. We’ve even made fun of the way it looks. If this were a schoolyard, this car would have run home and told its parents. But now it’s in our garage. You see, despite our naggings, the Z has value. Our Brilliant Silver Touring trim tester, which starts at $41,240, already boasts heated and cooled seats, keyless entry, pushbutton ignition, and Bose audio standard. We opted just for Nissan’s seven-inch navigation screen with a…

THREE YEARS after Ford’s last concept car, the Interceptor, the company is flexing its design muscles again, but working in the opposite direction. The Start Concept, created with developing markets in mind, is a four-seat coupe that may well preview the next Ka. While this concept isn’t destined for production, it’s a good look at where the company’s global plans are headed. The turbocharged 1.0-liter three-cylinder is the newest of the EcoBoost engine family, and is expected to make the same power as a 1.6-liter naturally aspirated four-cylinder—about 120 horsepower—and will see production in the near future. Mated to a five-speed manual transmission, the Start is expected to produce less than 0.35 pound of CO2 per mile. Though it appears reasonably spacious and boasts a trunk behind the hatch, the…

DAIMLER CHIEF Dieter Zetsche and Renault/Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn have signed an agreement to share technologies and platforms, with a miniscule 3.1-percent equity exchanging hands. The two chiefs lead a 12-member committee to identify and work on projects where the three auto giants can find synergy. This is the latest in a long line of attempts by Mercedes to partner with a mass-market automaker that can help with popularly priced models without tainting the three-pointed star. The three expect to realize cost savings and added revenue of about $5.4 billion from the deal, which is open-ended in time and number of potential projects. It also helps Renault/Nissan fill up its underutilized capacity and helps both better compete with the Volkswagen Group juggernaut. HERE’S HOW: ■ NEXT SMART to share Gen…

AFTER CORRALLING all seven of these modern-day ponycars together for hundreds of miles of testing, driving, photography, and videography (www.motortrend.com), we thought it would be enlightening to have our judges rank them all from first to last. This turned out be an informative and illustrative exercise for our staff and readers. Should you have any doubts after reading Markus’ and Kiino’s respective comparison tests, let the chart opposite put them to rest. The Mustang GT was not only the runaway winner of the V-8 class, but the only consensus pick among all seven. No less impressive is how high up on the leader board the Hyundai Genesis 3.8 finished; it beat managed to beat the Challenger SRT8 on five of the seven judges’ scorecards, and soundly trounce everyone else for…

AS THE first all-new Lotus since the Exige made its debut in the United States back in 2006, the Evora, the world’s only four-seat mid-engine sports car, enters the marketplace saddled with a dual mission: Attract new, more grown-up buyers to the brand, but, equally important, don’t offend the current crop of customers whose youthfulness and hardcore devotion to a range of single-minded two-seaters has helped bring the boutique Brit back from the brink. While not a savior, per se, the Evora is a stepping stone for Lotus, designed to take the Norfolk, U.K.-based outfit to the next level. How? With a mature-audience hit intended to double U.S. sales while putting Porsche on alert. Has the maker succeeded? We’ll have to wait to report on the former, but on the…

YOU’D THINK that after 42 years in the saddle at a single company, a guy might view retirement as a chance to kick back a little. Travel, maybe. Play a little golf. Or just sit around the pool with a tall cold one and a contented smile. Not Wayne Cherry. After a distinguished career at General Motors that culminated in his being appointed only the fifth vice president of design in the company’s history, he decided to build a concept car of his own. “You just can’t stop designing, you just can’t stop being involved with cars”, Cherry explains. “You start to do something like this, and it turns into a concept vehicle.” He makes it sound like a winter garage project that got a little out of control, which…

YOU HAVE to look close and hard to spot the 2011 X5’s cosmetic updates. The front end has two telltale giveaways: bigger air intakes with less plastic cladding in the lower fascia and foglamps that sit closer to the center of the car, just under the caps in the bumper. The rear end receives a similar “less plastic, more paint” treatment, and its reflectors now sit closer to the taillights. But this update isn’t primarily about an exterior once-over, even if it is somewhat overdue. This time around, it’s all about modernizing the X5’s gasoline powertrains. For the volume inline-six version, that means shedding the outgoing xDrive30i’s naturally aspirated engine in favor of a new 300-horsepower single-turbo variant earning the badge: xDrive35i. There is also a big change on the…

THERE’S BEEN quite a bit of a Buick buzz around Motor Trend Towers recently. Our April issue cover was the first in nearly 28 years with a Buick production car on it, and we’ve just come back from blasting around the Nürburging Nordschliefe in the new Regal Turbo. That’s right, we just put Buick and the Nürburging in the same sentence—without a snarky punchline. No wonder we’re buzzing about Buick. The reinvention of the Buick brand that began with the Enclave SUV entered its second act with the launch of the 2010 LaCrosse. This is the first truly international Buick; a car designed for Chinese market, where 80 percent of all Buicks are now sold, as well as here in America, where it’s tasked with reversing Buick’s 70-to-dead demographic. We’ve…

IT WAS seven years ago when we had our last long-term Mazda6, a new-for-2003 model that replaced Mazda’s then-aging sedan lineup of 626 and Millennia. With a choice between a 2.3-liter, 160-horse four-cylinder (6 i) and a 3.0-liter, 220-horse V-6 (6 s), we opted for the 6 s paired with a sporty five-speed manual. While no exceptional powerhouse, the 3.0-liter was nonetheless refined and offered more than adequate oomph (0-to-60 in 7.0 seconds). Plus, the manual transmission, a rarity in a V-6 family sedan, was especially entertaining and rewarding. Overall, the 6’s tidier-than-Accord size, miserly EPA fuel economy (20/27 by 2003 standards, 17/25 by today’s), and impressive reliability and maintenance cost (no problems and $105 for nearly 20,000 miles of service) meant the 6 was a fun, frugal, faithful long-termer…