Indholdsfortegnelse for May 1981 i MotorTrend

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…

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…

”The Car Book: A Consumer’s Guide to Car Buying,” National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, U. S. Department of Transportation, Washington, D. C.; 68 pages, 8½ x 11 inches, free of charge. Not content with telling taxpayers what kinds of cars they must buy, DOT and NHTSA have now published a booklet that tells us how to do it. But surprisingly, the booklet makes a lot more sense than we expect from NHTSA. Dividing cars into subcompact, compact, intermediate and large classes, the booklet permits thorough, if incomplete, comparisons between cars in the areas of fuel economy, maintenance, safety, insurance and repair costs. A “Purchasing Guide” collates information from the chapters headed Safety, Fuel Economy, Maintenance and Insurance. Additional chapters cover Complaints and Used Cars. Predictably, as with any government project,…

Millions of people the world over paid enormous sums and stood in endless lines to walk by some old toys and furniture that came out of a pile of rocks in Egypt. They did it because those objects—simple as they were—held historic and artistic significance that was only barely conceivable. This month, Pasadena, California, will be the site of an exhibition that may be the automotive enthusiast’s equivalent of the King Tut traveling show. “Carrozzeria Italiana: The Art and Science of Automobile Design” is a major museum retrospective of Italy’s innovative and influential role in the artistic evolution of automotive design. The Fiat-sponsored event—which shows no particular brand prejudice—has been seen in Turin, Rome and Moscow. It makes its only U.S. appearance with co-sponsorship from Pasadena’s Art Center College of…

If you thought freewheeling was one of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, read on: Like so many other bits of automotive technology, freewheeling came to cars from bicycles. When the transition was made from ped to pedal power, a device was necessary to allow coasting with stationary pedals. And so, each Old Ordinary (bicycle) had, as part of its specification, the one-way ratcheting device, sometimes called a sprag clutch and finally, freewheeling. Its application to the automobile was a natural. With freewheeling, relaxation of power meant the vehicle coasted just as if a regular friction clutch had been disengaged. What actually happened was a cessation of wedging action—spring-loaded rollers that engaged a ramped pawl were free, while coasting, to roll over the ramp. On reapplication of power, the rollers remained…

Cavalier is the newest nameplate in the long history of the Chevrolet Motor Division, and it is the first frontdrive 4-seater in the division’s stable of product. It is also the only one of the three original J-cars that will be offered with a specialty model in the lineup, that model being the Type 10 3-door hatchback coupe. The Type 10 hatch is distinguished by its completely different front-end styling, a soft urethane nose cap and black horizontal grille bars with fully integrated front and rear soft bumpers and a specific headlight treatment. The Type 10 comes in both base and CL high-level trim, and can be ordered with any of Chevrolet’s nearly 50 individual options including the F41 suspension, steering and tire package. As such, the Cavalier is an…

Never mind the window sticker, and stop all that carping about the $630 sunroof that hauls back about as easily as the main hatch on the Cutty Sark. The point is, how many true status wagons can you buy today—for any money—that also rate as outstanding pieces of engineering? Not to mention as economical transportation. As well as respectable in the performance department. If you suspect that this line of questioning is rhetorical and that the sole answer to this station wagon catechism is displayed herewith, you’re onto us. Although Jaguar’s product planners are currently casting covetous eyes on the luxury wagon segment, at this writing it’s still strictly a Mercedes lock. And the addition of turbocharging this year makes the lock that much tighter, boosting the performance level from…

The chips are down, the waiting is over, and now the game begins. John Zachary De Lorean against the odds. John Zachary De Lorean as the game-but-vulnerable champion of the all-American Horatio Alger ethic. The last stand of the individual entrepreneur in a business world populated by faceless conglomerate giants. Is it possible that a car has ever been offered to a public more willing to see it succeed? Even the detractors, most of them sitting on the Labour Party benches of the British Parliament, want this venture to cover itself with sales records and glory. There’s growling from this group about British tax money financing a luxury car for America, but no one can argue with the creation of jobs—any jobs—in Northern Ireland. Guys with jobs are a lot…

“Whazzamatter,” said the kid with the Sunoco jacket, “is the pump screwed up or sumthin’?” “No,” we answered. “We’re just trying our damnedest to top off the tank, and this tank takes a long time to bring up.” “Well, it’s just that you been out here for a half-hour now, so we figured yuz havin’ trouble widda pump or sumthin’.” We explained as to how we did this sort of thing for a living, and the kid just cocked his head and gave the car the once-over. “Dis izza Honda, right? How much duzzit cost?” “About $13,000,” we said with a sideways glance, not wanting to chance overflowing the filler neck. The kid coughed. “Nope, Hondas don’t cost dat much. Whaddizzit?” “An Audi 5 + 5,” we ventured. “It’s…

Datsun engineers quickly admitted that going to the more efficient NAPS-Z engine for the company’s gasoline-powered trucks somewhat undermined the advantage of the new diesel option. We wondered how the two engines compared, so we ran a gasoline King Cab head-to-head with our diesel. Externally, the gas and diesel Datsun pickups are identical, although the oilburner is available only with a 5-speed manual transmission and 2-wheel drive. And for the diesel you can add $650. The two King Cabs felt and handled exactly the same, but engine characteristics varied markedly. The NAPS-Z was much smoother and quieter, it responded more quickly to the throttle pedal, and it propelled the truck much more energetically. In our estimation, there was no question that on driveability and habitability, the gas version won hands…

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…

America is a country for crazy cars, made by fun-loving enthusiasts. In Europe, where people are perhaps more conservative, there are those who admire zany vehicles but are inhibited by restrictive licensing rules and administrative headaches. Nevertheless, there are a few who have created some special vehicles for fun and for competition. The latest example must be a “premiere” even for the States. It is an extraordinary off-road 4-wheel-drive Rolls-Royce Corniche made in Paris by T. de Montcorge. I don’t believe that anyone has yet had the idea of transforming a new $100,000 automobile into a vehicle to be used in one of the toughest off-road rallies, the 10,000-ki-lometer-long Paris-to-Dakar. De Montcorge not only had the nerve to attack this unusual project, but he did it in such a professional…

Veteran automotive journalists, a jaded bunch at best, often found it difficult during the ‘70s to stifle a yawn at domestic new-car introductions. You could hardly blame them: most of what was new’ involved higher prices and lower performance. Now we’re in the ‘80s, and nobody was yawning when they rolled out the new Pontiac J2000 for the automotive press at General Motors’ Mesa (Arizona) Proving Grounds. What Pontiac (along with Chevrolet and Cadillac) has produced in its new J-car may be just the ammunition Detroit needs for its most telling broadside to date against the import hordes. In short, the J2000 could bridge the gap that has plagued U.S. car makers in recent years, a gap in which American consumers increasingly have perceived imports as offering better performance, economy,…

“They don’t build’em like they used to” ROAD TEST The large glass bubble that Plymouth grafted onto the back of the 1964 Valiant to create the Barracuda may have resulted in a fastback profile straight out of the early Fifties. But it also served as a “crystal ball,” foretelling the future of the family car. The fastback glass was not the whole Barracuda “window of the future.” There was also a folddown rear seat. Corvair sported this folddown feature years earlier, but when you folded down the ‘Cuda’s rear seat and combined it with the room to the rear (including a concealed trunk), you had over 7 feet of “anything” space, as the ads touted it. Almost like a wagon. It marked the first time you could have the…

No matter what you’ve driven before, this new De Lorean is something quite different. The nearest similarity, perhaps, is the mid-engined Lotus Esprit, but in the De Lorean you have almost all of the V-6 engine behind the rear wheels, and only 35% of the car’s total weight is at the front. But if that leads you to expect this elegant new 2-seater to be full of treacherous oversteer, have no fear. Lotus, who took a big hand in the development work, know a thing or two about making cars handle, and that knowledge shows up the first time you take the new car into a corner. You approach as fast as you dare, but with a little trepidation—waiting for all that rear-end mass to assert itself in some…

Jerry Hathaway became a Citroen dealer by default. He was the suspension man in the service department of a Los Angeles Buick dealership when the dealer added Citroens to the inventory. It took only one look at the Citroen s V-6 engine and transaxle assembly for most of the dealer’s flat-rate mechanics to know they didn’t want to have anything to do with the car. Not so with Jerry. He was already well past the point of being challenged or excited by front-end alignments and control-arm bushings; he wanted to learn something new. and the Citroen was it. After a few years with various outfits that made part-time attempts at being Citroen dealers, Jerry. ended up as the Southern California Citroen connection, catering primarily to owners of the SM version,…

It’s a typical winter afternoon in Southern California. The traffic is light along the Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica; a few people are wandering across the beach; there’s a jogger here and there; the weather is pleasant, if a bit cool for swimming. Bill Jehle and I are totally oblivious to the laid-back ambience. We are driving along in a Jeep Wagoneer that is literally vibrating. We are listening to jazz on a local FM station, and the music has taken over our world. Every bass note sets off a sympathetic vibration deep in our chests, and guitar lines slice through the truck like a chainsaw. The volume is set at just below the level of a 747 taking off, but the music is as crisp and clean as…

Growing pains for GTP Just when it looked like everything was coming up roses for John Bishop and the International Motor Sports Association, storm clouds appeared on the horizon in the form of Federation Internationale du Sport Automobile head honcho J. M. Balestre. At issue is how IMSA’s Grand Touring prototype 2-seater sports racers will be classified with respect to the new FIA Group C specs, which govern international prototype cars. These new rules are scheduled to take effect at the close of this season. For the past two years, Bishop and his staff have been working closely with FISA’s technical committee to devise a series of equitable power-to-weight ratios for engines eligible to compete in this class. The idea was to develop a single set of rules that would…

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…

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…

To every red-blooded American, there’s no place like the ol’ hometown. But the results of a Hertz Corporation study on the cost of driving in various U.S. cities may dampen some folks’ spirit. Particularly if they live in Los Angeles. That sprawling megalopolis, built in tribute to the personal automobile, is the most expensive spot in this fair land to drive a car, according to Hertz. The geographic cost analysis ranks 20 major cities on the basis of total per-mile expenses to own and operate a 1980 domestic compact. The study assumes 10,000-mile driving years and a trade-in after three years of use. Included are estimates for the cost of gasoline and oil, maintenance and repair, licensing, insurance, loan interest and depreciation. The 1980 figures range from the Los Angeles…

Cameras cast in the role of traffic control devices hardly rates as a new development, but it’s getting out of hand in West Germany. Whether it’s autobahn or city strasse, your average West German driver runs the risk of several kinds of picture tickets these days, without ever getting a glimpse of a flashing blue light. Although the German freeways have no speed limits, a couple other areas of traffic regulation—specifically, car-to-car interval and lane-changing—have created ample opportunity for graphic enforcement at two levels. First is the fixed camera position, usually set up on an overpass and therefore easily detectable when manned. Second, and more insidious, is the hidden patrol car that dishes up its own version of the radar patrol in living black and white. Although crossing a solid…

The first line on the first page of the Chevrolet Cavalier J-car press kit handed out at the car’s recent introduction says, “Cavalier—aimed at the imports,” and before the week was out, we did exactly that. We aimed a Cavalier Type 10 CL, the high-series 3-door hatchback with sport suspension (F41), at a Toyota Corolla SR-5 sport coupe 3-door hatchback that we brought along for just that purpose. At worst, we have an unfair comparison; at best, we have a good, solid idea about the Cavalier’s capabilities in at least one segment of the small-car market, the sporty hatchback segment. The comparison could be termed unfair in that the Cavalier was a pilot production model of a front engine, front-drive car chock-full of brand-new technology but lacking a set of…

With the Cimarron, Cadillac has embarked on one of its boldest marketing moves, including the controversial design of the Seville. What it has done is expand its prestige franchise to include a market segment that up to now has been left to the Europeans. In short, it has high-lined the corporate J-car and built in European flavor. Cadillac considers the results of its efforts to be something of a conquest vehicle. Just how successful the Cimarron will be is anyone’s guess at this point; however, current production plans call for 15,000 units for 1981 and another 30,000 vehicles for ’82. And there’s enough production capacity to considerably increase these projections. Possible pitfalls lie in how the consumer will perceive a small, American-built luxury sedan, and whether the full-line Cadillac salesmen…

There is probably no better illustration of the difference between “drama” and “spectacle” than a 24-hour motor race. It’s rare when there’s any drama left unresolved in the waning minutes of an endurance event, when intervals are usually measured in laps rather than seconds and most of the actual racing has been performed by a small army of asbestos-fingered mechanics. But when the event is assessed as a spectacle, the issues of wheel-to-wheel and down-to-the-wire become academic. The race then becomes a sort of exotic backdrop, its surreal blend of noise, color and speed providing other-worldly accompaniment for philosophic reflection. As a race, the 1981 edition of the 24 Hours of Daytona was much like most of the 20 that preceded it. The drama was resolved in the 10th hour…

I have kept this Peugeot under my I watchful eye for about three months now. I’ve paid close attention to those IJ who select it first and over what, and when if gets left behind in our parking lot. No one ever chose it over the M-B 300SD that we had at the same time; yet it was frequently chosen before other sedans like the R18, the Cressida, the Reliant K and the Chevy Malibu. It was even more popular among the staff than the new Saab 900 automatic sedan. But it would always collect cobwebs if the keys to the Audi 5000 Turbo were left unattended. The Peugeot 505 S Turbodiesel is a confusing package. At least it has been to me, and I’ve spent considerable time driving it…

Understand right from the start that this is a truck we’re dealing with. True, modern mini-trucks are versatile vehicles that competently serve all manner of personal chores as well as commercial duties. But in fitting a diesel engine to its pickup truck line, Datsun moves its focus several notches closer to pure utility; much consumer-pleasing civility has been traded off in the search for a maximum-efficiency workhorse. This is not to say that a Datsun truck, like the King Cab examined here, becomes totally unusable for family transportation when powered by the 4-cylin-der diesel. Heavens, you could take the entire family down to the church bazaar in a cabover Freightliner if you had a mind to. With the Datsun diesel, it’s more a matter of being aware of what you’re…

Fixing the beginning point of any new car is near impossibility. Even when an individual draws plans, cuts metal, builds and develops, it’s safe to say that the original concept came from some earlier, perhaps forgotten inspiration. Ferdinand Porsche was not directly responsible for the Porsche or any other automobile with his name on it unless one counts the hyphenated Lohner-Porsche (1900). The Lohner was not only Dr. Porsche’s first car—it was also his first racing car, his first front-wheel-drive car and his first streamlined car. It was a battery-powered electric—Porsche’s contribution to the old coachbuilding firm of Lohner in his native Austria was the drive system. His training had nothing to do with vehicles or internal combustion engines—he was an electrical pioneer. It was this lucky combination with Lohner…