Indholdsfortegnelse for February 1990 i MotorTrend

If you’re old enough, like I am, to remember the first round of the auto industry’s battle against smog, you no doubt also remember its adverse effects on performance cars and cars in general. For the first few model years after the smog regulations went into effect, all our vehicles Were strangled with air pumps, restrictive exhausts, low-compression ratios, and odd ignition timing to the point that they just weren’t fun to drive anymore. Fact is, some of them were almost impossible to drive, since they barely ran. Of course, during the same period, many of the era’s hot cars were discontinued or emasculated almost beyond recognition. It was in these years that the mighty GTO, 442, SS396, Boss 429, and Hemi went the way of the passenger pigeon. Against…

This spring, Toyota will hold an early launch for three impressive, new ’91 models. Highest-profile player is the completely redone MR2. A logical extension of the original mid-engine 2-seat concept, it retains some familiar styling cues but has much rounder bodywork. At 164.2 in. nose to tail, length is up 8.7 in. Wheelbase has also increased, going from 91.3 to 94.5 in., and curb weight rises by several hundred pounds. The new MR2 will be available with a choice of two engines, both also common to the Celica line. Base model carries the same 5S-FE 2.2-liter electronically fuel-injected twin-cam four used in the GT/GT-S and rated at 130 hp at 6400 rpm and 140 lb-ft at 4400 rpm. The top-line Turbo model has the All-Trac’s 3S-GTE turbocharged and intercooled 2-liter…

It has become the standard by which others are judged, the Honda Accord. And the ’90 edition of this wonder of engineering and marketing common sense will do nothing but raise the standard even higher. I remember the first time I saw one, back in the mid-’70s. Some of us thought it looked like a VW Scirocco, but its driving manners weren’t as sporty. Obviously, it had been engineered by the same clever, thoughtful folks who had been sending boatloads of Civics to satisfy a raging demand from the American buying public for those clever, thoughtful little cars of theirs. But we couldn’t quite put our collective fingers on who, exactly, would line up for these new Accords. Damn near everybody, as it turned out. Just as every Honda product…

Despite enjoying major success elsewhere, the U.S. sales picture has lately been anything but rosy for most of the upscale European auto makers. Prime among the rolling wounded is Saab, a firm likely to see its 1989 totals fall by 10-12% here. But the venerable Swedish manufacturer is taking measures to revitalize its market position for 1990. The key element in the game-plan is an all-new 2.3-liter 16-valve DOHC engine for the 9000 line, which will replace the existing 2-liter 8-valve naturally aspirated powerplant currently used in the American 9000S models. Although not due here until the spring, this new engine is already available in Europe. At the kind invitation of the folks at Saab-Scania AB, we recently headed off to Sweden for a bit of firsthand reconnaissance work. Saab’s…

It’s quite possible that Henry Ford would have looked upon niche marketing as offering some color besides black. No more. Niche marketing has so taken over the industry that the niches are getting bigger than the whole piece of pie they’re supposed to cut the niches into. As one example, we had the rapidly expanding sport/utility market. Now, the sport/utilities are being carved up even more, the latest slices being taken by the 4-door versions of those off-road/on-road daily-use/weekend-only 4x4s. Isuzu, Mitsubishi, Jeep, and Toyota have previously announced easy rear-entry sport/utilities, and General Motors (with a 4-door S-10 Blazer and S-15 Jimmy) and Ford (with a redone and renamed Bronco II) will follow. Nissan is also in the game with its 4-door Pathfinder. The 4-door sport/utility makes a lot of…

Don’t Sweat the Details If keeping your car in pristine shape seems more of a chore than it used to, don’t feel bad. It could be a sign of success. Many Motor Trend readers fondly remember a time when detailing our cars was less work than passion. However, those days of leisure and fond recollection are likely to have been three promotions, two houses, and a kid or two ago. The passage of years from bright-eyed and newly licensed to successful and time-constrained often brings subtle change. While it’s true our love of cars hasn’t diminished, for many of us, our free time has. So, it’s likely the enjoyment of our cars manifests itself as we don driving gloves, rather than washing mitts or polishing cloths. But an automobile need…

Classic car collecting reached a new plateau during the recent Brooks auction held at Motorfair in London, when the famed Vanwall VW10 Grand Prix race car fetched a record $2.4 million (£1.6 million). The auction was conducted by Robert Brooks, managing director of Brooks auctions. Brooks formerly headed the vintage car department at Christies in London. This was the first auction ever held at Motorfair. The VW10, designed and built by Tony Vanderwell of Vanderwell Products, Ltd., raced the Grand Prix circuit in 1957 and 1958. Driven by a race team that included Stirling Moss, the car won both the Dutch and Portuguese Grand Prix races in 1958. The VW10 was instrumental in British racing efforts during that period. It was purchased by Hans Thulin for the Swedish A.B. consolidated…

Contact DETROIT REPORT confidentially at P.O. Box 241089 Detroit, MI 48224 $30,000 BOUNTY FOR UNKNOWN SPY General Motors is mad as hell and ain’t taking it anymore. And it’s putting its money where its mouth is. GM is so hopping mad that top-secret spy photos of actual future products are making the rounds that it’s offering a $30,000 bounty on the head of the tipster. That’s real money. It was unclear whether the culprit should be delivered dead or alive. “It’s unfortunate we have to go to these lengths,” GM spokesman John Mueller told The Detroit Free Press, “but this is a very serious matter.” Shown here are the latest deep-in-side-GM-design-staff shots of the ’91 Saturn, the pictures that powder-burned the GM types into offering the extraordinary reward. The Saturn…

It’s a little like the Loch Ness Monster. Every local around Hethel, England, and environs has a story about the beast. One guy claims to have spied the low, hunched visage on numerous occasions, moving swiftly across the fog-shrouded British countryside, but always too fast or too far away to burn a clear image into the mind’s eye. Some say if you’re out by the Millbrook proving grounds in the silver heart of a moonlit night, you can hear a breathy, wailing sound. Strain against the blackness, and maybe you’ll even get a glimpse of the dark form, flying low along the surface, only shimmering moonlit highlights separating the muscular shape from the shadowy underbrush it hurtles through. The stuff of legends. And the British do love their legends. The…

Concept cars come and go, with the emphasis on go. It’s hard to work up much enthusiasm about most of them because they appear with superb, futuristic styling, and then just as quickly disappear, never to been seen again. Car companies use concept cars to “test the waters,” and they’re usually no more than static styling exercises, in some cases, without engines or drivetrains. The Pontiac Stinger you see here is certainly the exception, as we were recently exposed to a day with it in the San Bernardino mountains, including some driving time around the wonderfulness of Lake Arrowhead. We can’t remember driving any vehicle that attracted as much attention as the Stinger, and we think it’s as much the styling as the wild fluorescent lime-green paint. Pontiac’s marketing clinics…

Station wagons have long been a significant part of the Peugeot family of automobiles. So it was no real surprise when the French car maker decided to expand its recently introduced 405 sedan line with one of these high-utility workhorses. The surprising aspect of the new Sports-wagon is just how much driving fun one can have with a vehicle whose primary function revolves around the more practical aspects of day-to-day transportation. The 405 Sportswagon is available in DL and S guise. At $15,990, even the DL is comprehensively equipped. Its roster of standards includes climate control A/C, full analog instrumentation, rear window defogger, power door locks, six-speaker AM/FM/cassette stereo, adjustable steering column, tinted glass, and intermittent wipers. The upline S, which stickers at $18,495, adds leather-covered, electrically heated sport seats,…

Volvo is a car company that believes in evolution rather than revolution. It’s steadfast in its belief in “core values,” which are company standards for quality, safety, reliability, and value for money. This philosophy has served Volvo well, especially in recent times when most’European auto manufacturers have found the U.S. auto market tough. Volvo remains the largest importer of European-built cars in America today. With that in mind, it comes as little surprise that there are no earth-shattering introductions for Volvo’s ’90 lineup. However, there are significant improvements in almost every area. The most important is the addition of a supplemental restraint system, which includes a driver-side airbag and knee bolster, to every Volvo brought into the U.S. Also for ’90, Volvo will introduce a pair of price leaders, one…

Benson Ford had no sooner cleared the track with the red Comet Cyclone GT pace car when all hell broke loose behind him. Sixteen of the 33 race cars became entangled in a mechanized imbroglio that left Foyt, Gurney, Yarborough, and eight other drivers watching the race from the side of the course. Fortunately, none was seriously injured, and the race was restarted after nearly a 90-minute delay. Such was the excitement surrounding the first few moments of the ’66 Indianapolis 500, an event that was ceremoniously kicked off a couple weeks earlier when Mario Andretti drove the bright-red Mercury pace car through a banner and officially opened the track. Since “the big M” was to be the marque of choice for that year’s pace car (not surprising, considering Ford…

Fishing and racing cars are not activities you would normally associate with one another, particularly when the practitioners thereof are, one and all, “Big Names In The Sport,” and even more so when it’s the fishermen who are looking for a few good apexes, and the race car drivers who are stalking the elusive bass. Add to that a fallen warrior, a NASCAR legend, making his first at-speed appearance since an almost fatal crash, and you have the makings of an interesting event, an event such as the one held at the Malibu Grand Prix track in Orlando, Florida. What actually took place was a unique sort of pro-am tournament, sponsored by Hummin’ Bird, a manufacturer of fishing paraphernalia, as well as Texaco and Nabisco, whose products are perhaps more…

TOKYO MOTOR SHOW: TOMORROW ARRIVES TODAY Easily living up to its advanced billing, the Tokyo Motor Show provided an international forum whose participants ranged from the resolutely practical to the delightfully futuristic. Nearly two million guests crowded through the turnstiles to view its many wonders. While Frankfurt may still hold the edge in sheer size, there can be no question that Tokyo has arrived as a major exhibition. Here’s a look at some of the most intriguing vehicles on display there. Pininfarina Mythos While the new 348 could be seen on the Japanese importer’s stand, it was the Pininfarina-designed Mythos that captured the imagination of most showgoers. Built on a Ferrari Testarossa chassis and fully driveable, the Mythos dream car is deliberately simple in form and Spartan in execution. Both…

1990 Car of the Year 1990 Car of the Year is always something of a family reunion for the Motor Trend staff. It not only gives us a chance to gather our far-flung staffers—from such exotic locales as Los Angeles, Detroit, and Norfolk, England—but also brings in the best of this country’s automotive family, as well. Most of the names are familiar, but each year the faces change—some a little bit, some a lot. Regarding the hardware, 1990 brings with it one new name—Lumina—and seven changed faces. Car of the Year rules stipulate 5000-unit annual sales and at least 75% new sheetmetal, and actually nine contenders fulfilled that requirement: Buick Regal 4-door, Chevrolet Lumina, Chrysler New Yorker and Imperial, Lincoln Town Car, Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme 4-door and Trofeo, and Pontiac…

Life in the automotive fast lane sometimes can be awfully unfair. Especially if one’s primary role is to serve as the supporting sibling to an ascending star car. The situation gets even stickier when the vehicle in question is viewed as little more than a major cosmetic upgrade of an extremely popular, albeit decidedly middle-of-the-road, family sedan. That, in a nutshell, is the rather unenviable dilemma faced by the Lexus ES 250. When Toyota decided to launch its new Lexus prestige line, the marketing types felt it essential to pair the top-line LS 400 super sedan with a smaller, more affordable entry-level vehicle. (Hmm, where have we heard that before?) To ensure that the program remained cost-effective, it was decided to spin the ES 250 off an existing platform. Although…

Philosopher Jacques Buridan claimed a man must choose that which his reason tells him is the greater good, but that he may delay making a decision until his reason has had sufficient time to gather all the information it needs. Well, we plan to do just that. With 19 cars competing for the ’90 Motor Trend Import Car of the Year award, there will be mounds of information to absorb before we can choose the greater good. We’ll be gathering subjective and objective information, but what we’ve gathered so far are the most outstanding examples of the capabilities and technologies of the world’s automotive manufacturers. So open up your data banks, and let the decision-making process begin. Acura Integra GS The car that started all this “second-channeling” is back with…

Suspended in Time (and Space?) Hovercraft are not typical of the vehicles we’ve come to expect on pages devoted to motorsports, but they are motorized, run in organized races, and, well… they’re just darned cute. The Hoverclub of America (Box 216, Clinton, IN 47842-0216) is now midway through its racing season, with upcoming events scheduled for February through June. Race sites include: South Florida; Southwest Texas; Terre Haute, Indiana; Long Island, New York; and Troy, Ohio. Since these all-terrain vehicles are just as maneuverable on land as on water (and let us not forget ice and snow), they are subjected to a variety of terrain on the race course to test both driver and machine. The course in Terre Haute, for instance, is two thirds water and one third land…

But What Is It Worth? There’s no question that the collector car marketplace is hot. While enthusiasts have always coveted the unique and special automobiles available, the advent of the non-enthusiast “speculator” has created shock waves within the market. Car prices have skyrocketed, and with this avalanche in pricing, bandits have entered the fray. Cloned cars, patched-up wrecks, forged paperwork, cars pieced together from three, four, or five vehicles, and a host of other outright frauds and near-frauds are becoming commonplace. Obviously, it’s important to protect your interests by carefully evaluating a collectible vehicle prior to purchase. If you have a good working knowledge of the subject automobile, you may choose a do-it-yourself approach. Here, be sure to arm yourself with such items as value guides, a list of matching…