Indholdsfortegnelse for October 1983 i MotorTrend

HONDA JOINS THE COMMUTA CONTEST The sporty 2-seat Honda Civic CR-X pictured here will be joining an all-new Civic series to be introduced sometime after the middle of this month. The CR-X will be powered by a high-output 1.5-liter version of the company’s Prelude 4-valve engine. Expected to produce over 85 hp, and installed in a diminutive 145-in.-long 1800-lb body, the CR-X may be the guickest Honda on these shores. To be offered in bright red and medium-metallic blue and white, the Civic CR-X is planned to be priced in the $7500-8200 range. —Phil Moscowitz TOYOTA IN LOTUS LAND Only two weeks after the British Car Auctions Group took a major shareholding in Group Lotus—it could amount to 40% through underwriting a new issue of shares—the other major bidder, Toyota,…

George Orwell taught us all to cringe at the coming of the year 1984. And well may you debate how the world’s social and political state resembles the frightful archetype the author envisioned. But take the automotive view and things don’t look nearly so bad. In fact, model year ’84 is shaping up as the cheeriest time in recent memory for American car makers. Not so very long ago, the U.S. auto industry was in a harrowing tailspin, one that doomsayers were touting as terminal. They had a point. Think back a year and a half. With both car sales and industry employment shockingly low, Detroit was coming to grips with some painful realities: Not enough of its products stacked up well against imported alternatives; bringing fresh automobiles to market…

—incredibly precise and detailed minted miniatures of pure gold on solid sterling silver. The 100 greatest performance cars of all time—portrayed in brilliant micro-detail by the master engravers and craftsmen of The Franklin Mint. Attractively priced at $9.50 for each gold-on-silver miniature. First Edition Proof Sets limited to 25,000 world-wide. The minted miniature. Microscopic sculptured detail…raised in precise relief against a mirror-bright surface of 24 karat gold. Perfectly formed…a triumph of exacting craftsmanship. All in an area no larger than the eye that beholds it. This is fascination of the minted miniature—and the secret of its appeal to collectors throughout the world. Now you are invited to discover this amazing achievement of the minter’s art for yourself, in The World’s Great Performance Cars Miniatures Collection. Issued by La Federation Internationale…

A General Motors, 1984 is to be a year of polishing and perfecting. With the exception of the new A-wagons and Pontiac’s Fiero (September MT), there is no new sheet metal to speak of and very few technological innovations. There have been, however, some significant refinements of existing products. Perhaps the most startling of all is an experimental Oldsmobile diesel that feels nothing like diesels are supposed to feel (read sluggish). This 4.3-liter oil burner is a virtual rocket compared to any currently in the GM system, even though the 4.3 V-6 it’s based on is one of our favorites. The miracle of forward motion was accomplished without benefit of turbocharging. Instead, Olds engineers designed a ram-tuned induction system for the engine. Olds was quick to emphasize that this project…

The electronics revolution is cutting two ways. Some people, especially the teen-aged video whiz kids with a permanent case of the thousand-meter gaze in their eyes, have embraced it as easily as the older generation embraced Erector sets and model trains. On the other side of the revolution are the ones who are simply terrified. They just don’t get it, can’t see what the fuss is about, and would frankly rather have things the way they were in the old days. This is especially true in the case of automobile electronics. In the old days, before the invention of the microprocessor, anybody with a set of hand-tools and a shop manual could get in there and fiddle around with a choke setting or mixture screw and get the engine to…

When the phone call came in, most of the staff was understandably expectant. The voice belonged to Joe Molina, P.R. representative for O’Gara Coachworks of Beverly Hills, purveyors of AMG Mercedes conversions. Joe was telling us that the brothers O’Gara would like to make one of AMG’s latest projects available to us. What could we say besides “when?” and “what color?” As you can see, there isn’t much doubt about the color. It’s all red. With the emphasis on the all. Hans-Werner Aufrecht, a former Mercedes development engineer and founder of AMG, once explained that painting a Merc, grille and all, is a moderately easy way to lend an ultra-conservative car a decidedly individualistic look. One look at the car displayed here vindicates at least the individualistic part of this…

First of all, let’s set the astronomical record straight: The Nelson Ledges 24-Hour Showroom Stock Enduro, which had justified the “Longest Day” nickname in its first three runnings by scheduling as close to the summer solstice as possible, missed the mark by a good week this year. The reason for this lay not with a set of faulty calendars, but rather in political machinations and/or schedule conflicts, depending on whom you talked to. We like the machination theory best, since it makes better soap opera, and as far as that goes there are few at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course who would deny that they had cast covetous eyes on this increasingly prestigious race. The Mid-Ohio rationale for possibly moving the event contended that the race had outgrown Nelson’s club-sized…

In 1939, my father bought a 1939 De Soto to replace his 1937 Plymouth. I would normally have assumed his pride in the new car, a maroon 4-door sedan, but remembering my father, he was probably more annoyed at the short life of the Plymouth. (My older brother had wrecked it, bent the frame. My father and his more astute car-owning friends always shook their heads gravely and agreed with one another that “frames can’t be straightened; never right again.”) That De Soto had a 3-speed columnshift transmission, independent front suspension, hydraulic brakes with twin leading shoes, an all-steel turret-topped body. The body was a fastback, a kind of slow fastback, with styling influenced a bit by the 1936 Cord, a bit by the Chrysler Building in New York City.…

If, like me, you thought the Pikes Peak Auto Hill Climb was a kind of mechanized nutball non-event ranking with the World’s Figure 8 Championship of Islip Long Island, think again. Any driver who climbs that hill in any sort of vehicle at anything in excess of 30 mph is a real hero. The run up the hill is 65,560 ft long—that’s 12.4 miles. It begins at 9400 ft above sea level with a flying start around a curve, a left. It ends at 14,110 ft between a pair of aluminum poles. There is one downgrade of three-quarters of a mile. The hill averages 7% grade. The surface is dirt figured with ruts, gravel, stutter bumps, potholes, crumbling edges, rocks, and the assorted high-altitude drunks fallen from their perches onto…

Only Skin Deep I have the answer to your photo quiz on page 30 of the May issue. The answer is not A, B, or C. The car pictured is my 1972 Ferrari Daytona with a facelift executed by several of our more creative (and sometimes misguided) designers. During the winter, I keep my Ferrari in the basement of our building where I can occasionally see it, pat it, and do some work on it during off hours. One morning while I was away on vacation, a group of designers sitting together over coffee decided it was an ideal time to “redesign” Jordan’s Ferrari. With tape, exacto knife, foam core, chrome foil, and a few assorted accessories in hand, these enterprising purveyors of good taste converted my Daytona into an…

THINK I’LL GO CRUISIN’ IN MY DONG FANG HONG There’s probably a good hit song or perhaps a rash of bad jokes lurking behind the new joint venture recently announced between American Motors and the People’s Republic of China. For $16 million in cash and technology, AMC bought a 31 % chunk of the government-owned Peking (Beijing) Jeep Corp., purveyor of an ancient, Russian-designed 4-wheel-drive model called the BJ212. (Its former name, taken from the old factory, is “The East Is Red,” or Dong Fang Hong in Chinese). Within a year or two, AMC hopes to replace the BJ212 with an updated version of its CJ-7 and begin shipping Jeeps throughout the Far East—a market that’s presently dominated by the Japanese. AMC’s deal with the Chinese is the second major…

A cording to the people who keep track of such things, something like half of all marriages end in divorce these days. Looks as if the AMC/Renault marriage is going to be one of those that worked—even though it was born of convenience. There have been some rough spots. The Renault 18i the French thought would be a big hit in AMO showrooms wasn’t. And AMC dealers who packed those showrooms with Le Cars found them very hard to move indeed. But there have been bright spots. The Fuego generated some excitement, and the Alliance was the biggest AMC hit ever since, what? Ever? For 1984, the money, the engineering, the styling, and the enthusiasm for change that the marriage has created have resulted in an array of new products…

With the exception of Chrysler’s G-24 and T-115 and the Pontiac Fiero, new product from Detroit is scarce. Instead, 84 is a model year in which the manufacturers have chosen to consolidate, refine, and advance the state of their individual product from an engineering standpoint. AMC news for ’84 is the Encore, but in essence it is the successful Alliance with some styling trickery at the rear. A new aerodynamic liftgate with wraparound glass and spoiler (standard on top-line models, optional on others) establishes the Encore in the 2- or 4-door hatchback category. The engine is the 1.4-liter fuel-injected (multi-point for California, single-point for the other 49 states) 4-cylinder carried over (with its 5-speed transaxle) from the ’83 Alliance. Also new for ’84 is a “systems sentry” electronic monitor, which…

Say you’re in the business of making movies. What do you do when you crank out a smash hit? Simple. You wait a few months and release a sequel. Sometimes it works. (We’re about to be treated to “Rocky IV,” for crying out loud.) Sometimes it doesn’t. (Remember “Grease II”?) So what do you do if you’re in the carbuilding business and you have a hit on your hands? Why not? It worked for Sylvester Stallone so why not American Motors, which is our case in point. More than just another way of saying Alliance Last year American Motors’ French connection gave us the Alliance, and you know what a hit it was. We named it Car of the Year. The staff waxed poetic about the all-around wonderfulness of the…

A station wagon is the kind of vehicle that just doesn’t seem right unless there’s pandemonium in the back seat and an Eskimo Pie is dripping down the back of your neck. Let’s face it, despite all the pretenses and uptown names like Estate Wagon and Town and Country, a wagon is your basic mode of transport for people with too many kids, too many bags of fertilizer, and too many shopping bags to carry. The only reason you buy a wagon is because you really need it. There’s no denying the fact that there’s a certain mind-set that seems to be part and parcel of wagon ownership. Buying a wagon has always been the psychic equivalent of turning 30. It’s like admitting to the world that the fun’s over…

Ford Motor Company’s decision to spearhead development of America’s new breed of aerocars ranks as one of the biggest gambles ever undertaken by any auto maker. The firm anted up over $11 billion during the past four years to revamp its manufacturing facilities and product lines for the mid-’80s. Thus far, buyer response to the Euro-look Thunderbird and Cougar has substantially exceeded projections. The swoopy new Lincoln Mark VII also appears bound for automotive glory. But the ultimate success or failure of FoMoCo’s entire modernization program will be determined elsewhere in the product mix, by the sales performance of the Tempo and its Mercury counterpart, the Topaz. These new front-drive replacements for the old-guard Fairmont/Zephyr lines were developed to help Ford do one thing: carve out a healthier niche in…

Sometimes the obvious can be deceiving. On the surface, the 51st annual 24 Hours of Le Mans appeared to be just one more in an ever-lengthening list of overwhelming Sturm und Drang performances by Porsche. Despite the FIA’s present fuel consumption rules—which put a decided crimp in their absolute abilities during the race—the incredible 956 prototype coupes laid claim to the first eight finishing spots, and left no doubt about which manufacturer would take home the overall laurels. But the final order among the front runners was a different matter, remaining very much in doubt until, quite literally, the last lap. As the last hour of racing began, so did one of the strangest denouements in the annals of long-distance competition. The No. 3 factory car driven by Americans Al…

Starting off from Detroit for California in your new Cadillac Cimarron may not exactly be the modern sequel of “Somewhere West of Laramie” in the famous Jordan-Page ad from the ’20s. The sense of epic adventure isn’t quite the same. But it ain’t all that bad, either—partly because, like any true addict of the automobile, I derive pleasure from the simple condition of being in motion, partly because Cadillac has done a nice job of getting the Cimarron closer to what the division’s marketing wizards said it was in the first place: an antidote to the dread BMW syndrome, that affliction of young lawyers, dentists, advertising executives, and up-wardly mobile legal secretaries (to name just a few) that makes them utterly blind to anything but baby Bimmers. Anything, that is,…

SUPERSCOOP: BUICK’S 1985 REGALETTE Recently, while on desert maneuvers in sizzling Arizona, a few staff members stumbled across this nearly complete 1985 Buick N-car. The N, originally scheduled to replace the aging rearwheel-drive G-body, is a 4-passenger coupe that rides on a 103-in. wheelbase and is propelled by a transversely mounted engine driving the front wheels. Engine offerings are expected to include The General’s 2.5-liter Iron Duke, Buick’s 3.0-liter 90° carbureted V-6, and the newly introduced 3.8-liter port injected V-6. A 4-speed manual gearbox may be available with the base 4-cylinder powerplant, but the sixes will most likely be offered with automatic gearboxes exclusively. The N-car uses MacPherson struts with coil springs at the front and a J-car-like trailing arm interconnected twist axle in back. Brakes are discs front with…

Chrysler has struggled mightily over the past several years to come back from what many felt was an inevitable bankruptcy. The cost has been heavy—some 41,000 jobs and nearly a third of its existing manufacturing and assembly facilities were sacrificed in the process of modernizing, downsizing, and front driving the fleet. But the net result is nothing short of a modern-day financial miracle. With Lee lacocca at the helm, the revitalized Chrysler has become an aggressive marketing organization. The sales resurgence of ’83 allowed the firm to post an all-time-record second-quarter profit of $310 million. Soon after, Chairman Lido announced that Chrysler would repay its entire $800 million in remaining federally guaranteed loans by September 1, seven years ahead of schedule. This inertia should continue on intc 1984, as the…

This summer, Ford announced it would pay its stockholders a dividend in the third quarter of 1983, the first time since late-’81 its financial situation has allowed payment of a dividend. The improved balance sheet is a direct result of increased car sales, a lot of credit for that going to the positive initial acceptance of Ford’s newest-generation automobiles. More than any other domestic manufacturer right now, Ford is gambling that a roll of its design dice will come up a winner. The rounded, distinctive, aerodynamic look it has adopted for its “signature of the ’80s” has stirred some controversy—inside the company as well as out. Some eyes consider the look too sharp a break with the past, particularly for the ore conservative market segments. But the product lines that…

Chrysler’s miraculous comeback effort has been spearheaded by the innovative pairing of high-tech engineering and frontdrive technology. For 1984, the firm is taking its boldest steps yet into these arenas. The G24 Laser/Daytona sport coupe will no doubt command a bit more of the limelight. But it’s the new T-115 midi-van that may well end up sparking the most widespread response among buyers. A cross between a conventional van and a station wagon, Chrysler’s new T-type provides those in search of maximum flexibility with an entirely new transportation alternative. The 5/7-passenger utility vehicles are being offered under Plymouth Voyager and Dodge Caravan designations. During the recent long-lead new-model previews, we had a chance to put a preproduction Caravan through some formal and informal paces at the Chelsea Proving Ground. Designers…

Just in case you haven’t been near a radio or television in the last year or so, Ford’s Escort, in its various multi-national forms, is currently the best-selling car in the world. 1 he little front-drive car hasn’t done too badly here in the States either, with Ford’s smallest U.S.-built car regularly topping the domestic sales charts. From its American introduction, the Escort has been an economical and practical—if rather dull—car. And recently added 1.6-liter High-Output versions of the CVH powerplant have helped eradicate the dull image at the small price of a few mpg. Another noteworthy event has occurred in the three years since the first Escort went on sale—the price of gas has actually gone down. This event might not, at first glance, seem like a very good…

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