Indholdsfortegnelse for June 1988 i MotorTrend

The government (both state and federal) long ago proved incapable of designing automobiles, but still it persists. Blinded by do-goodism, it writes laws to make automobiles safer, which result only in making them heavier and harder to stop. Crusading public servants write laws to restrict auto emissions, which result in severe driveability problems. Their intentions may be honorable, but the results are nearly undriveable. Do us a favor, stop trying to help. The people of this country will determine with their purchase decisions which cars they want to buy. Stop trying to make all cars deliver 28 mpg—if Americans wanted all cars to deliver that kind of fuel economy, they’d buy only fuel-efficient cars and the others would soon leave the marketplace. But if people want powerful cars that deliver…

GERMANS LEAD WAY IN EUROPE The Volkswagen-Audi Group has usurped Fiat as market leader in Europe, accounting for 15% of the record 12.3 million new-car sales last year. And Peugeot-Citroen has bumped Ford, once a leader, from 3rd place. JAPANESE PREFER THEIR OWN New-car sales also reached a record level in Japan last year, with homemade products taking no less than 97% of the market. Import sales did rise, though, to 100,000; 75% of those were German, only 4% American. VOLVO AXES SPORTS CAR PLAN Volvo’s distinctive 480ES sports coupe, the firm’s first deviation from sedan and hatchback production in many years, will not be brought to the U.S. after all. The Dutch-built 1.7-liter 110-mph 2+2 seater was originally expected to reach these shores toward the end of last year,…

Few sports cars are as venerated as the Porsche Speedster. Call it beautiful; call it ugly. Call it sweet; call it wicked. The Porsche Speedster was all these things and more. Though not a gigantic sales success by Detroit standards, it struck a chord with the sporty driver of the ’50s and set a tone for the marque that continues to this day. It was a milestone car in the truest sense of the term. It still defines a Porsche in the minds of auto enthusiasts everywhere. Interestingly, America can lay claim to much of the spirit that went into the original Porsche Speedster. In the early ’50s, American enthusiasts were beginning to discover the joys of the open sports car. The success of MG and Jaguar in the late…

History was made on March 7, 1988, as Honda of America Manufacturing became the first “Japanese-transplant” auto maker to send U.S.-built cars back to Japan. The initial shipment of 540 Accord Coupes left from Portland, Oregon, aboard the U.S.-flagged ship Green Bay. Honda plans to export 4000 of the Accord Coupes, which are assembled only in Ohio, to Japan in 1988. Under an ambitious program announced last September, the firm will expand its current U.S. manufacturing capacity by adding a second production facility, a move that will allow it to ship 70,000 Accords annually to Japan and the rest of the world by 1991. The export Coupe, priced at 2.6 million yen (about $20,000), is aimed at a prestige-oriented buyer. All will be left-hand drive, and, unlike their American counter-parts,…

Who says all the wild, exotic, and crazy things in the world come from California? Here, to prove otherwise, is the Kingray—a heartland-hauler if there ever was one, straight from Chicago, USA. Built by King Speed Shop, a Lansing, Illinois, go-fast specialist, this car is every Saturday-night drag racer’s dream and every Porsche driver’s nightmare. It’s equipped with homebrew drag-race hardware that some might look at as unsophisticated but none can deny packs punch. The heart of this heart-of-America special is a 400-cu-in. Chevy block destroked to 377 cu in., with Hooker headers, 10.5:1 TRW pistons, Grumpy Jenkins turbo heads, Competition cams, Accel ignition, MSD plug wires, Bosch plugs, TRC 4-bbl carb, and 2.5-in. dual exhausts through glasspacks. (No, this car ain’t strictly legal, officer.) Of course, the Kingray wouldn’t…

In theory, you should be able to determine the correct horsepower of your vehicle by simply looking at the manufacturer’s published horse-power figures. But often the published figures are far off the actual numbers. The published numbers represent gen-erated horsepower and don’t take into account horsepower that’s eaten up by drivetrain drag, suspension drag, tire drag, and, most important, air drag. The number we’re most interested in is available horsepower, which can be determined with just a brief test drive and a few simple items such as a tape recorder and a stopwatch. Here’s what you’ll need: 1. The actual weight of the vehicle as you plan to test it. If you’re going to have a passenger during the test drive, weigh the vehicle with both of you aboard or…

Most people will tell you the important difference between a war story and a fairy tale is this: A classic fairy tale begins with “Once upon a time…and a classic war story begins with “This really happened… This really happened. We’ve attended a new-car introduction at an East Coast assembly plant, and are driving the sporty new vehicle back to the office. We’re attentive but a little tired, though the car is fresh and is ticking along at 78 mph with the quiet efficiency of an atomic clock. The radar detector chirps a few times, but darkness and the microwave penumbra of traffic ahead instill confidence. EEEEEEEEEEEEEE! The cry of a Passport in full song rocks us with the violence of a cannon round. A Pennsylvania State Trooper materializes from…

It’s reassuring to finally meet a living legend who lives up to the role. I didn’t meet Mickey Thompson until after he had already gone over 400 mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats, after he had introduced wide, low-profile tires to the Indy 500, after he had accomplished many of the feats and introduced many of the innovative new automotive products that made him famous and rich. I watched from the start Mickey Thompson’s struggle to make off-road racing a major motorsport—from his first outdoor “RV Spectacular” at Riverside Raceway in the early ’70s to his latest success at the stadiums and arenas across the U.S. He was an off-road racer who believed in the sport and worked as hard as I have ever seen anyone work for 16 years.…

Power Trip—Plus I enjoyed your test of the BMW M6 versus the 928S 4. My choice would be the M6. It seems like a mighty fine automobile, though I would need more range. Gas stations up here in the mountains aren’t plentiful. My friend has a cousin in San Francisco who heard that BMW might be coming out with a normal-size gas tank for the M6 as a factory option for about $2000. Sad to say, you can’t depend on hearsay. I have two 5-gal G.I. gas cans mounted on the Barden bumper of my old Chevy pickup. I guess I could take those off. The Chevy has a 21-gal tank. The cans are red, but I expect BMW makes a red M6. I would want the colors to match.…

’89 MERCURY COUGAR XR-7 TOO The swirl of preproduction publicity over restyled ’89 Thunderbirds has overlooked the revitalizing of the MN 12 Mercury Cougar. We correct that oversight here. The rear three-quarter view of this ’89 Mercury Cougar XR-7 shows that Cougar is losing nothing to Thunderbird in a low-key but high-performance rivalry. The new XR-7 is a highly styled car, as totally new and different from the next Thunderbird as it is from the Cougar it replaces, yet still apparent are styling nuances that identify it as a Cougar. Sources report a wheelbase of 113 in., up from the current Cougar’s 104.2. The overall length of about 200 in. reportedly is unchanged, following the lead set by the new T-Bird. Also new is an independent rear suspension. That, and…

How would you like to be an independent designer in the midst of the project of your life and find that a major manufacturer was about to introduce a version of the same car you were working on? Bummer, right? Well, that’s exactly the position Paul Deutschman found himself in when Porsche debuted its vision for a second-generation Speedster at last fall’s Frankfurt Auto Show. Like the Spexter, the new Porsche Speedster represents a return to top-down fresh-air driving. It uses a modified 911 Cabriolet bodyshell fitted with just two seats rather than the (nearly) four of the standard 911, and the folding top is a lightweight type that disappears under a plastic tonneau. The major appearance change from the 911 Cabrio is the windshield supported by a wispy aluminum…

One has to admire a chef who takes chances. The culinary arts permit such a range of expression that experimentation with ingredients, cooking methods, and even presentation can result in extraordinary successes. The best satisfaction comes from those new dishes that please the most palates because, given the diversity of human tastes, the potential for experimental disaster is only an ill-timed move away. Fail to add enough new ingredients and the experimental becomes commonplace. Fail to blend those ingredients harmoniously and the commonplace becomes trite. We and a small flock of our motor press colleagues were whisked from the U.S. to Nice, France, where we embarked onboard cars for a 40-minute drive across the French frontier to San Remo, Italy. San Remo is the emotional center of the Italian Riviera.…

Maybe you’ve heard something like this before. First, the Germans come up with a bright idea to hurry along the progress of the automobile, perhaps the most significant development to reach production in the last two decades. They apply it to a high-performance car and demand a correspondingly high price. Then the Japanese convene, confer, dissect the new technology, and—with the applause for the original idea barely subsided—rush into showrooms with their equivalent. Difference is, the Japanese take a machete to the price. Same thing has happened with the introduction of 4-wheel drive to performance cars. The Audi Quattro started it all, of course, and, oh, with what a flourish: Here, from Ingolstadt, West Germany, was innovation on wheels, a two-time winner of the World Rally Championship of Makes, a…

It’s all rock ’n’ roll in the auto industry these days, with models hitting the streets like Top 40 records: a new release every other day. They come and go like the latest hot group or musical fad. Some, the Taurus and Sable, say, hit platinum and ride the top of the charts. Others, like the Eldorado and Riviera, wind up on the remainder shelves. It’s a jungle out there. Serenely above it all rides Mercedes-Benz, sticking to the classics while others chase trends. And, as most manufacturer’s models proliferate, Mercedes trims its line back: For 1988, there’ll be an even dozen M-Bs, down from 14 in 1987. Sadly, the hot 190E 2.3-16 is gone, as are all the diesels, save one; and the remaining models stay essentially unchanged, save…

Space limitations are a fact of life for magazines. I, for one, would like a larger office with a bigger couch, stereo/TV componentry, and perhaps a wet bar. Nagy, a man of simpler tastes, wants a window. Until he gets one, he insists on using mine. Of course, magazines also have space limitations within their pages. Though Motor Trend road-tests more cars, import and domestic, than any other American auto magazine, we still don’t have the space to test all the cars we want to. In fact, try as we might, it’s possible we haven’t yet tested a certain car you’re particularly interested in. Well, if that’s the case, brother, rest easy, because the following is a do-it-yourself kit that allows you, in the comfort of your personal La-Z-Boy recliner,…

Alive and Driving—Roberto Guerrero’s Comeback Why does it always happen to the good guys? Why is auto racing so indiscriminate, so damnably cruel? Roberto Guerrero was only 28. He was blessed with a rare talent. He was unfailingly modest. He was irresistibly likable. He had shown, at the wheel of an Indy car, searing flashes of brilliance. But he had not been allowed the time to reach his peak. Just last year, Guerrero had come so close to winning America’s most coveted auto race, the Indianapolis 500. He’d won at Phoenix International Raceway, six weeks before Indy, from last place on the grid. And he’d won again at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course only a week before the Goodyear tire tests, only a week before the place he landed after the…

AND NOW, THE Z2 Now that BMW has initiated production of its 2-seat Z1 roadster, tests have already begun with a larger, hard-top derivative. This experimental prototype, spied testing in West Germany, is believed to employ the same suspension and 2.5-liter 170-hp engine as the Z1, but has a slightly longer wheelbase to accommodate two rear seats. The new coupe—inevitably dubbed by industry insiders as the Z2—matches the ZTs rakish nose and swept-back wind-shield with long side windows, a roofline that slopes gently down toward the rear, and a large hatch-cum-notchback tail door. Like the Z1, the coupe is significantly lighter than the 325i sedan, whose engine it shares, thanks to the use of an aluminum gearbox casing, aluminum propshaft tube and differential, and plastic-composite body. The coupe appears to…

BMW is no stranger to the luxury motorcar business; the Bavarians have built a whole herd of the things over the years, exploring just about every conceivable permutation that contains two critical ingredients. The first of these special qualities is road-going functional ability, and the other is passenger comfort. The BMW folks would, of course, like you to think they invented the combination. That may not be completely true, but the Bavarians have come extremely close to perfecting it. These two qualities are included in varying measure in every BMW; some models are sportier, and some are more luxurious, but all are designed to strike a pleasant balance of the two qualities without sacrificing one for the other. Some people might tell you these qualities can’t be combined effectively, that…

Every once in a while, we at Motor Trend get an offer we can’t refuse. Luckily, most of these are not of the Godfather’s do-it-or-elts variety. Instead, they’re generally so wonderfully appealing that we can’t turn them down no matter how arduous our workload, how imminent the next deadline. Such was the offer from Automobiles Peugeot to drive the new 405, the 1988 European Car of the Year, from its factory in Sochaux, France, to the Pininfarina studios in Turin, Italy, crossing the Swiss Alps in the process. Sure, we could have stayed around the office to catch up on our filing and tidy up our desks, but the road beckoned. What could we do but answer its call? So it was that we alighted from the airplane in Basel…

DRIVING IMPRESSION The evolution of the street car over the years has always been cross-pollinated by equipment for—and from—racing cars. Street car sheetmetal is hammered over a full-dress racing chassis for NASCAR racing; tires and mammoth experimental brakes tested in showroom-stock racing are later put into volume production on street cars. The Chevrolet Beretta GTU is a form of mild hybrid, a pure street car in race-car clothing that fits it well. Chevrolet has few legacies with more historical relevance than its racing history. The company wanted to go IMSA GTU racing in a Beretta silhouette, and under the rules, the racing car shell had to be homologated. That is, 500 copies of a Beretta GTU had to be sold to customers in order for the rear spoiler to be…

Why Didn’t We Buy Ferraris When the Price Was Rigtit? Classic Gallery 1933 Model SJ Duesenberg Arlington Torpedo Sedan One time many years ago, when Carroll Shelby was just getting into the Cobra business, he offered me a ’54 Ferrari 375 Mille Miglia roadster for $1000. It had a hole in the block where a rod had gone out the side, but otherwise was a fairly decent car. It was all there. A replacement engine could probably have been acquired for $3500 to $5000, and I would have had one of the really great Ferrari competition roadsters. Had I bought the Ferrari and replaced the engine, I would probably have played with it awhile, scared myself silly (the 375 is a brutal car, requiring both great skill and great bravery…

you’ve probably heard that being an automotive journalist is one of the best jobs in the world. Well, it’s true, but that convenient capsulation ignores the darker side of the occupation—the side that can, quite easily, turn the job into a hellish pit of misery and horror. I’m talking about worry, here. The kind of major, unreasoning worry that can reduce an otherwise functional human being into a bumbling chowderhead. By conventional standards, I’m not considered a worrier. I’ve spent the last decade or so testing and writing about motorcycles for sister publication Motorcyclist. This is not a job for the faint of heart, what with a steady diet of bikes that hop from 0-60 mph in under 3 sec and corner hard enough to drag tender parts of the…

Automotive security devices have endured one radical wave of development after another in the last five years. It appears that as quickly as security engineers design and perfect a system, criminals learn how to defeat it. But the latest device from DesignTech, called CarFinder, might well hold its own for a while. Designed more for the convenience and protection of the car’s owner than for the security of the car itself, CarFinder is a hand-held electronic transmitter that enables the car owner to locate his vehicle with a press of a button. From up to 400 ft away, the owner can activate his car’s headlights and sound a locating whistle en route to the car in a crowded parking lot. With its built-in Panic feature, CarFinder attracts attention to a…