Indholdsfortegnelse for December 1985 i MotorTrend

Lincoln/Mercury to Get Mazda Clone Seeking to differentiate itself from Ford division, Lincoln-Mercury will sell a version of the upcoming Mazda 323 as its replacement for the Mercury Lynx in the 1988 model year. Plans now call for L-M to market the 3-door hatchback version of the 323, which is Mazda's successor to the GLC, but a 4-door sedan might also be added to the mix. The car will be powered by an electronically fuel-injected 1.6-liter SOHC engine backed by 5-speed manual and 3-speed automatic transmissions. The car will be built in Mexico using Japanese parts provided by Mazda. With the addition of the Scorpio to the Merkur product line, plus the Mercury Sable and revised Mercury Cougar, Lincoln-Mercury will definitely be presenting a different face than Ford within two…

lacocca goes shopping in Modena for a new flagship It finally sank in that I was in Italy when I saw Richard Conte punch Victor Mature right in a freshly healing bullethole and say, “Tu non sei in forma.” (You're not in great shape). Mature collapsed in a greasy heap on the steps of a church, and I knew exactly how he felt. This was at the Canalgrande Hotel in Modena, where at 2 a.m. I was flat on my back on the narrowest bed in the world and having one of those moments of what the British call spleen. Actually it wasn't that. What it was was this feeling that the right hemisphere of my brain just packed an overnight bag and jumped a bus to Albany. What remained…

The bronze '85 Vette is no longer the seductive tempter around the Motor Trend offices it once was. The staff is beyond its constant fight for a shot of V-8 juice, though when one of us needs some heavy decibel torque, the Vette is pulled from the stable for a spirited romp through the canyons. It's not that we're tired of the Vette, but like any once-new and highly coveted automobile, our long-termer has settled into a comfortable relationship with us, three quarters of the way through its assignment. Now almost a whole year old, our Vette is no longer the leading edge of Chevrolet's technology—the improved '86 Vette holds that title— but we will still be sorry to see it go. Almost 12,000 miles have been accumulated in the…

This is a road test that almost didn't happen. We at Motor Trend drive a huge number of cars during our work (and we use that term loosely) days, and not all of them are reported in the pages of our magazine. With just so much space each month we can only report on the very new and very exciting, which is why the Prelude Si almost didn't make it onto paper. Sure, we reasoned, it's got a new motor, but we'd reported on the Prelude as recently as May (Scirocco versus Prelude versus Grand Am). Then we drove it. We found the Si so sweet, so willing, so able a performer that we just had to report on it again. Let's start with the new 12-valve fuel-injected 2-liter engine…

We've encountered quite a few blatant outpourings of owner adulation in the course of preparing these MT surveys. But no subject vehicle to date has elicited the kind of across-the-board kudos generated by the Honda CRX. The petite hatchback urbo-hauler—and 1984 MT Import Car of the Year— joined the Honda lineup in 1984. Blending practical transport capabilities with exceptional economy, abundant sportiness, cuteness and lovability quotients that are almost off the top of the scale, the CRX hit the ground rolling and has continued to fight a winning battle for the hearts and minds of U.S. automobile buyers ever since. Our survey sample was drawn from vehicles registered in mid-1984. A sizable portion of the respondents relied on the CRX as their primary means of transportation, a fact evidenced by…

Buying a new car can be a daunting proposition. Every year the choices grow wider, the prices higher, and the decision correspondingly tougher. A lot of money is riding on the right move, so it's not surprising that buying a new car can cause gray hair and sleepless nights. There's simply too much to choose from. To help you wade through this morass on the way to a successful buying choice, we have compiled this extensive listing of all the new production cars available in the United States for the 1986 model year. From American Motors to Yugo, from Audi to Toyota, they're all here with the important specifications you need to know. The list covers each manufacturer's Ameri-spec cars, and offers such crucial information—when available at press time— as…

NASCAR Winston Cup The Winston Cup Grand National chase suddenly became a legitimate contest during the month of September. Things started out auspiciously enough for points leader Bill Elliott, whose record-setting win in the Southern 500 at Darlington clinched the Winston Million award and extended his edge in the standings to 206 points. But Bill and the high-flying Coors-Melling Thunderbird fell on tough times at the next three events, failing to make the top 10 in any of those contests due to mechanical problems and shunts. Primary adversary Darrell Waltrip was only too willing to take up the sudden slack and used these shorttrack races to pull within 23 points of the leader. Waltrip's charge began at the Wrangler SanforSet 400 in Richmond, where he claimed his second win of…

At Large Bug-Free Europe In mid-August, the last of the VW Beetles arrived in Emden, West Germany, from Mexico. Sales have slipped noticeably in 1985, with only 2352 sold in the first six months compared to 10,711 sold for all of 1984. The ubiquitous Bug's disappearance from new-car showrooms brings to a close the most successful model run in history. Porsche Tops 50,000 For the first time in history, Porsche AG has topped the 50,000 mark in yearly production- 50,425 to be exact. Accounting for 31,558 of the sales were the 924/944 models. Porsche, hoping this trend will continue, has raised its number of employees to 7700. About 75% of production is tagged for export, most of which is destined for the U.S. market. Get in Line for a 959…

you're up on Mulholland Drive around 6 p.m. It's commute time, and there's a certain edge to everybody's driving. The hills around here are fabled. This is where your movie people, cocaine dealers, Arab sheiks, and prime real estate swindlers like to dig in and parade around for each other. The parading takes the form of mock Moorish castles, imitation Spanish haciendas all out of proportion to anything on a human scale, and these enormous marzipan confections that look like they were whipped up by a psychotic Austrian baker. The cars these high-profilers drive are calculated poses. Like billboards in the desert, they're designed to extract the maximum visual value for the dollar. You're not surprised to see more Ferraris here in a half hour than, say, a year of…

To be candid, the first responses were not overwhelmingly glowing. One of the guys came back from a trip to the car wash talking about torque steer. More than one tester had an underwhelming first impression of the interior appointments. The word ''cheesy” turned up in the car's logbook on this score, although most of the commentary regarding the interior was much kinder than this. Reviews of the exterior were equally mixed. While most staffers—as well as the Saab-watchers we encountered during our three weeks with the car-approved of the new design, a great many complained that “it doesn't look like a Saab.” The tonality of these pronouncements told us that not looking like a Saab was/is a bad thing. And if it doesn't look like a Saab to these…

For those of us at Motor Trend who admire the recent Audi lineup for its sophistication and style, it was gratifying to see our good feelings reflected in the '84 5000 S/5000 Turbo owner survey (Aug. '85). The owners' emphatically positive responses praised the car's level of refinement, and their remarks also described a car remarkably devoid of major or minor ills, somewhat surprising in light of Audi's reputation as a marque traditionally beset by the gremlins of unreliability and poor fit and finish. It is with additional interest, then, that we take another look at our long-term Audi 4000 Quattro. It has become, in a way, a control subject by which to measure its big brother's popularity and sterling credentials. Our investigation is more than just the test of…

Convertomania has died down a bit now that all the big makers are filling the general demand. But there remains a lively fringe trade, working up specials—exotic and mundane—to create convertibles where the original manufacturers didn't, wouldn't, or couldn't (or perhaps knew better). As ever, some of these retrofits make sense and some are silly; some are well executed and some are hat-cheted; some make desirable packages and some are scary. Everything hangs on a harmonious alignment of quality (and qualifies) in the base car, in the engineering of the conversion, and in the handwork that executes it. You see before you an example of a good conversion (it makes sense, it's well executed, it's desirable), and one we immensely enjoyed during a few days of serious profiling. Coach Builders…

Weight reduction is always a primary goal of vehicle designers. More weight means more fuel burned, and we all know what that means with respect to the world's precious petroleum supply. In addition, weight must be managed dynamically. It must be accelerated to cruise speed, and the vehicle kinetic energy (which is proportional to weight) must be dissipated every time it is decelerated. The chassis and tires must cope with the transfer of weight during cornering, braking/accelerating, and all road surface changes. To fight this continual battle of the bulge, engineers look to the structures of their vehicles to reduce weight, but without sacrificing strength. If a material can be substituted that meets the load-bearing requirements yet reduces weight, it can be justified, even at a higher cost. Structural materials…

At Large Be a Big Brother Okay, so your car has a 23-speaker stereo, cellular phone, sheepskin seat covers, a Mr. T deodorizer, and carbon-fiber beer can holders. What can you do to out-accessory the neighbors? How about a spy camera cleverly disguised as a radio antenna? Yes, you too can become a super snooper with CCS Communication Control's newest surveillance device. Hidden inside what looks like an ordinary car antenna is a micro-miniature camera lens that can be adjusted for either wide-angle or close-up ranges. It continuously rotates to give a full 360° view. Hidden under your car's fender is the camera, which can videorecord such subjects as errant spouses, neighborhood subversives, or, we suppose, thieves. making off with the car. It can also transmit the image to another…

Imagine what the performance car of the 1990s might look like. Imagine how current trends in design and technology will develop over the next decade. Imagine what the enthusiast driver is likely to demand and expect 10 years from now. Then imagine yourself capturing that vision in composites and alloy today. _ That was precisely the opportunity—and the challenge—that absorbed the efforts of a select group of designers and engineers at General Motors over the past three years. The result of their work, their vision of the performance car's future, is the striking Buick Wildcat. _ Surely electronics will play an ever widening role in the management of the vehicle—though they must not infringe on the enthusiast driver's decision-making and control. Engine performance will continue to improve, with due attention…

Green time. Lead or lag arrows. Platoons. Cycles. Phases. Time-based coordinators. Peds. Loops. Ramp metering. Gap size. Gap acceptance. Volume. Flow. Clearance intervals. Protected/permissive. Warrants. Conflicts. And let's not overlook the city council. All or part of these considerations went into the traffic engineers' thinking/scheming/planning on how to get you there and back with the fewest delays. Note, please, “with the fewest delays.” The engineers' approach to moving traffic is negative—only realistic. Vehicle numbers increasing faster than space in which to move them should result in longer travel time. By constantly tweaking the systems, engineers in younger, suburban areas where arteries can be widened or added may actually achieve improved traffic flow. According to Robert A. Kochevar, a traffic engineer in Lakewood, Colorado, a Denver suburb, “Our system now moves…

When Stephen Earle gives one of his used-car parties, you want to be there. Imagine you are an aging road-race groupie. What would bring you out of the retirement home on fruit Jello day and into that dusty bowl with the murky pond at the bottom that's Laguna Seca to view the largest outdoor museum collection of red used cars ever assembled? How about a retired World's Driving Champion? Didn't rap your gong, right? Well, how about three World's Driving Champions? No? Suppose one of them was World's Driving Champion five times? Ah, now that we have your attention, imagine that Earle throws in Phil Hill, Stirling Moss, Jackie Stewart, Don Orosco's Scarab, a few Ferrari Testa Rossas (you know—the real ones), a smattering of Ferrari GTOs (you know—the real…

Remember this date: August 26, 1985. That was the day scores of otherwise rational consumers went into a feeding frenzy at dealerships in the Northeast, attacking at first light, waving checks, fistfuls of money, and first-born children in a fury that cowed even veteran salesmen. That was the day a new class, almost a new kind, of car entered the American market. That day marked a new way of thinking about automobiles as the transportation devices they basically are. That was the day the Yugo went on sale. It was sticker shock backlash. In 1984 the average price of a new car in the U.S. was more than $11,000, and the average price of a used econobox import with 40,000 miles and a 30day warranty was around $4000. Before Yugo,…

Standing on the central floor of that spectacular cathedral in Seville, I was gaping like a rube come to town for the fair, while marveling at the genius of whoever was responsible for guiding all that lowly stone and mortar into this soaring tribute of man to his Maker-long before the first college of architecture or faculty of engineering had opened for business—when I spied a young male, obviously American, seated in a nearby pew examining what appeared to be a secular volume. Emboldened by curiosity, I went over and asked, “Is your book about church architecture?” “Indeed,” he replied, and we fell into discussion, which he, as a graduate architect, illuminated most helpfully. Finally, still dazzled by the splendor of the 500-year-old structure, I said, “Isn't it amazing how…

There's been no shortage of monumental NASCAR Winston Cup races over the years. But the 1985 Southern 500 is destined to go into the books as far more than just another amazing tale from the pages of The Good Ol' Boys Gazette. The wall-to-wall SRO crowd of 86,000 saw an event of genuine historic proportions. For openers, it produced the latest exciting chapter in the Saga of Awesome Bill Elliott, in which the Dawsonville Flash notched his 10th win of the year on Darlington's treacherous 1.66mile high banking to tie David Pearson's single-season record for most superspeedway victories. But during the crucial conquest, Elliott completed the final requirement for the Winston Million award, and was ensured the biggest single day payouts in U.S. motorsport history. As the result of having…