MotorTrend May 1981

Automotive designers are actually better salesmen than those late-night hypsters who ride strange animals past rows of cars, hang from the wings of biplanes and promise millions of TV viewers their weight in trading stamps in an attempt to lure them into their showrooms. Car stylists, as they were once called, do much the same sort of thing. They, too, whet our appetites, but they do it more subtly and with greater purpose. From their fertile minds come the appealing shapes of automobiles, and these envelopes tear at our sense of values, dig at our soul of justification and ultimately draw us into the showrooms of those freaks riding their circus animals. Nearly everything these days must have a purpose, which leaves little room for creative indecision. And this saddles…

Diesel Dirt Being in the diesel business and being an owner of a 1981 Olds Ninety-eight diesel, I found your “Diesel Update” and Cutlass/Ninety-eight road test most interesting. Being able to fuel once a week and obtaining high mileage is what sold me on the Ninety-eight, plus the added features of a full-size automobile. I drive 30,000 miles a year. With 5,000 miles to date, I am very satisfied with 22 mpg in town, 28.5 on the highway and, under ideal conditions (55 mph, cruise control, freeway), 32.5 mpg. The transmission coast/release valve in the converter clutch contributes greatly to the car’s driveability, a feature I can appreciate after a test drive in last year’s Olds diesel. Locally, quite a few people are installing the Racor fuel filter/water separator in…

The General Motors intermediates, or A-cars, will be a combination of new and old for 1982. The A-special cars, including Monte Carlo, Grand Prix, Cutlass Supreme and Regal, will be carried over as they are today, but the regular coupes and sedans in the A-car line will get all-new bodies and front-wheel-drive systems derived from current X-car technology. This will mean the 2.5-liter Iron Duke 4-cylinder engine as base equipment, and the Chevrolet 2.8-liter V-6 as the optional gasoline engine, but Oldsmobile will be contributing a new 3.2-liter V-6 diesel engine to the corporate A-car program as well. The illustration here shows a radical extension of the low-hood, slope-nose, high-deck body design that will be shared by the front-drive A-cars, all of which will get new names to separate them…

KOREAN CONNECTION SAVES PANTHER Panther Cars, the Surrey-based British specialty car manufacturer, has been snatched from impending extinction by a fresh infusion of cash from South Korea. Organized in 1972 by designer Robert Jankel, Panther found itself in a severe cash crunch last year, which led to receivership even though the company had been in the black two months earlier and orders were still coming in. Ironically, Jankel appealed to the Northern Ireland Development Agency, one of the primary angels behind DeLorean Motor Corporation, and was turned down. Then, just when it looked as though Panther Cars (nee Panther Westwind) was about to become history, help materialized from Yung C. Kim, representing Jindo Industries, a Korean multi-national conglomerate. The rescue means that Panther Cars is now another Jindo subsidiary, with…

When a sagging economy and rising fuel prices cause the bottom to drop out of the American car market, every phase of it is depressed. Recreational vehicles, particularly large motorhomes and vans, are among the hardest hit, as the lure of travel is dampened by high fuel prices and poor fuel economy. Van modifiers, who just over a year ago were working double shifts to keep up with demand, have for the most part shut down or converted to making lightweight trailers. Domestic manufacturers, hard pressed to retool for smaller passenger cars, have put production of mini-vans on the back burner while they strive to recoup sales with new fuel-efficient cars. Fuel efficiency, until now, was never a really important factor to the average American car buyer. Even when crude…

PEOPLE HAULER… … is a rough, round-eye translation of the Japanese word kamatsu, the name given this bolt-on van conversion for Datsun mini-truck chassiscabs. The unit arrives in a crate fully assembled, and with the interior completely finished. Installation entails painting the steel bodywork, removing the cab’s rear window, relocating the gas filler neck and taillights, and securing the van body with eight bolts. The finished Kamatsu, in this 2-seat windowed configuration, draws more attention on the road than most exoti-cars. Is that a commentary on how many modern drivers are feeling the discrepancy between downsized gas budgets and real-sized passengers? It’s true; the Kamatsu is a nifty way to carry six or eight people economically and in reasonable comfort. And the compromises are few: the unnaturally high placement of…